Atmospheric, moody, and highly promising. For the first 15 mins.
Then it’s just a series of badly acted conversations. And Clive Owen is a zombie. For no reason. What else? The dialogue is dire and horrible to listen to. A thriller devoid of thrills, this was a fucking drag.
The entire movie is pointless.
How to describe this truly spellbinding picture without reeling off every platitude there is?
It’s a movie that is entirely relatable and in the ‘real world’, yet is so divorced from conventional narrative it may as well be non-cinema.
It’s a new kind of artform.
Is that cliché enough?
In what is for the most part The Denzel Show, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a character in a movie talk so much as this garrulous, perpetually pished bit of rough. A wonderful script laden with occasionally profound insights and asides, it’s another tour de force from Denzel.
You’re in the presence of greatness.
A perfectly reasonable and noble biopic, so totally in awe of its subject that I lost interest and inevitably pulled the plug due to how tame and by the numbers it was.
But that hour wasn’t torture; I spent most of it on the topic’s Wikipedia entry, a few mumbling song renditions in the background.
So, thanks for the wee boost, for I can now hold a five-minute conversation about Bob Dylan.
James Woods as the odious pimp Lester Diamond in Casino (1995).
The lad features for a mere 10 minutes but in those precious scenes cements his acting legacy by effortlessly creating one of the the sleaziest, slimiest characters ever put on celluloid.
James Woods is a treat and we should be grateful to him.
Strong nostalgia tour here, the type of entirely unnecessary sequel you’d expect after a 30-year hiatus.
It’s okay for what it is – hit and miss, breezy enough for an hour but far too draining once the physical comedy reaches breaking point in its repetition.
And erstwhile golfer/legendary hellraiser John Daly has a cameo. I forgot about him. But I’m glad I have learned he is still alive.
The score in Kingdom of Heaven (2005) is exceptional, one of the best I’ve heard, and beautifully applied to image. It’s just a shame Orlando Bloom features, but I suppose you can mute him.
It evokes a time and place in a way that is definitive, without qualification. This is what that period sounded like, surely:
I tried.
Scorsese always deserves a second change of pants.
This movie is fucking atrocious. The needless, meandering, wholly unmemorable dialogue was the worst element of this unimpressive stinker.
You get the impression they are all about to drop the bombshell. And there isn’t one.
And it’s not even funny.
I hated it and hope you do too.
Sorry, Marty.
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