As long as you realize it's more Taxi Driver or No Country For Old Men, you won't be disappointed. I guess it all depends on what you want from a movie. Based on the comment about the pace of this film, I would guess you have not recently watched a classic? This is something that I am hyper aware of lately - our attention spans are getting shorter. Try watching "The Good The Bad and the Ugly"... there is no dialogue for the first 15 minutes! The Peter Griffin crowd in theatres today would fall asleep! For me, it is the antithesis of Hollywood of late - a breath of fresh air, and a return to film as art. Let's compare it to, say, Transformers 3 (which is everything wrong about Hollywood). In TF3, the dialogue is forced, the colorists oversaturated and crushed the contrast of the picture, and every minute of the film has to have something unrealistic happening ADD style. People don't fall off buildings for 2 hours in a row, get up and walk away. I feel the same way about the unrealistic perfection in Casino Royale. I love it as escapism porn from reality, but it just gets too be too much sometimes. It's too contrived - how many men do you know who are THAT awesome? In real life, plans do not flow well, people aren't always perfectly witty and timing is off. It just gets old and predictable. With this movie, again the battles are unreal. Canned gun sounds, choreographed fist fights, verbose perfectly timed dialogue... these are the things that make me fall asleep. Contrast this to the tension created by the introverted Driver. And the way such behavior made the action scenes pop, and you really noticed how hotshots like his boss & Standard talk too much but never really say anything. Too many people in this world talk a lot, but never really say anything. From a technical perspective, the cinematography is top notch. The sound effects aren't off the shelf from the studio library.The color curves have not been pushed to the extreme, like a cheap Photoshop filter. The driving scenes aren't stereotypes where cop cars crash into themselves, Blues Brothers style, or a Fast & Furious random assortment of skids for no reason. I actually felt like I was in a getaway car at the beginning of the film... like they hired a criminal as a technical consultant. Not to mention, the most realistic violence outside of No Country. Not Tarantino "killing is cool and fun" styled violence with political overtones, but honest to goodness documentary style. The kind that makes your conscience say, "gee, human life is worth something". I felt the lives had no value in theTF3 even though more people died. I felt like the female lead had value. And I felt like Driver had values. Most men I know of would have given a crap about the leading lady. This guy went to the extreme - a "real life hero" as the soundtrack sang.
I found their portrayal of action scenes to be fantastic. After all, that's what they do, so it follows that they would be awesome at it. Their acting in the emotional scenes was wooden and completely unconvincing. That makes sense too, as they are not professional actors with extensive training in portraying nuanced emotional scenes. Still enjoyed the movie very much. Along these lines, Blackhawk Down was just amazing.
Hello, Act of Valor, great movie so the acting was fair at best, who cares. loved where they Halo jumped with the sub surfaceing below them. Awesome!
From an artistic perspective I can't argue with the points you make. The issue I have is it came nowhere near the expectations I had...based on the trailers I saw. There are times I want to watch a movie and not have to think about it. This was not that movie... Perhaps more along the lines of what I was feeling at the time.
and she shoot guns...and he drives a 360...and she drives an Elise...what a cute couple! Saw it last night and thought it was a good mindless action flick, but certainly not great. Nice twist at the end.
I can understand that. Always thought they should have a ratings system for this. Something like (from weakest to strongest): Background Noise Comfort Food Mindless With Brief Interruptions Challenging Manic Episode on Meth
Those are two movies I really like and since I'm not a movie critic nor do I play one on tv I'm sure all will be ok, lol. I normally wait for movies to hit cable anyway.
After 5 or 6 duds in the theaters (at $11 to $25 a ticket), I stopped going. Especially since BluRay is just as good if not better (nobody kicking the back of my chair)... and only $1.50 at the local Redbox. Can't beat it.
Margin Call. Pretty good drama. B+ Somewhat wonky with banking terminology, but the basic premise is that everyone has their price.
Just caught a portion of "We Own the Night" which I had seen a few years back but I set the scheduler for tomorrow's airing.
The Artist. Loved every moment. Extremely clever. It's a simple story but the way it's presented is extremely fun. Also Towe Heist. I liked it more than the reviews.
Revenge of the Electric Car - It was great to see the lighter side of Bob Lutz & the stuggles of Tesla Motors, but no mention of Fisker Automotive.
Saw "Tower Heist" last weekend. Pretty good! It was fun (knowing the Lusso was a fake) and entertaining. Eddie Murphy was the funniest IMO. Just finished watching "The Way." Absolutely brilliant. I almost cried...yes, *I* almost cried...I never cry during movies. -Gil
I would go see that movie just for this one scene: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rLYAG1X0VU[/ame]
