The director here can direct like the bloke who constructed The Wicker Man (1973) can, and I’m not alluding to Nicolas Cage and “the bees”.
Quite the captivating drama this one, featuring the usual committee of elders/morons, the martyr lead, and your go-to religious allegories, but it’s done so well. It’s more watchable than Persona (1966), and definitely less irritating.
That’s it for the spoilers.
It’s pointless. It’s boring. It’s a waste of your time.
Another bit of rubbish.
James Gandolfini is the scene-stealer once again. It’s as if in every role outside of Tony Soprano, he went out of his way to demonstrate his range and ability to walk off with the movie.
A non-showy courtroom drama more concerned with characterisation than your standard John Grisham, there are also no Aaron Sorkin-style third-act histrionics. The subtle tête-à-tête is the big spectacle here, Travolta and Duvall making sure to keep it low-key but always interesting.
Rather than the melodrama, this is more concerned with how law works and how it can be manipulated. The good guys don’t always win – it’s not a profound point but so few of these pictures make it. Or have such an out-of-his-depth protagonist.
Better than most.
What a cracker this is!
Bill Pullman just disappeared for a decade and a half, but here he is in his prime, a remnant from the James Stewart acting school of nonchalance. He really should have graduated to the role of troubled leading man, a jaded cop or something.
One would deem this an archetypal neo-noir, but your femme fatale here is the protagonist for once. The multi-faceted, polymathic, boozing, smoking, shagging, utterly obscenely ridiculous Linda Fiorentino running rings around every idiot she meets.
Marry me?
We also have J.T. Walsh and his sleazy voice.
And a jazz soundtrack that doesn’t feel like a desperate bolt-on feature.
Riot of a film.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 