Loved the ending!
Saw a possible alternate ending in DVD wherein Casey Affleck gives a voice over saying he has done the wrong thing but I feel the way it is in the movie is great with a touch of ambiguity in it. The way the mother’s character was portrayed was brilliant.
Liked the movie as well!
Lets just say all the attention and praise is well deserved. Its heartening to see such originality in the tale and in the telling in our own backyard.
Reccomended.
Looks like Sorderbergh borrowed the that-guy-has-my-girl angle from it. The heist is superbly detailed set to the music of deafening silence. Lots of things to like and remember in this one. Good stuff.
Because I liked Erik Skjoldbjærg’s Insomnia better than Christopher Nolan’s Insomnia. Much better. Loved the original. Pondering this for some time, with Al Pacino on screen there are certain things I want him to do and some I don’t want him to. I dont think he’s capable of doubting himself like he does in this one. That assured exterior cannot be anything else inside. Some counter-casting like that happened with Robin Williams and Hillary Swank too. These are all very definite genre actors. I’m tempted to say the newer Insomnia is simply miscast but then what do I know! Just go watch them both.
I’ve come across quite a few of these plots lately, ones where everything just goes wrong and then even worse, just as it is most likely to happen in real life. In reality, beyond a point things just don’t get OK; there are no miraculous twists in our lives that ensure happy endings. You reap what you sow, and if you sowed something bad, you’re bound to end up reaping something nasty. Karma, dude.
Sidney Lumet loves hold-ups. No complaints, the guy made the greatest hold-up movie ever, and he’s come back to do another killer one at the ripe age of 83. I doubt if I would even read at that age, and this guy makes something like this. Wow!
BTDKYD is about 2 brothers, Andy(Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Hank(Ethan Hawke) who get together to do a robbery, a simple plan that goes real sour. The plot isn’t spectacular, but the execution definitely is. Lumet narrates this movie in stops and starts, with small flashbacks from each character’s POV, giving it layers of detail, and hence a lot of depth. But he doesn’t stop here. I guess if you’ve been making movies as long as Lumet, you have such a command over the medium that you can toy with it and use it with supreme effectiveness. While the viewer gets a background on what each character is going through and what drives them to do what they do, there are still a lot of these layers that Lumet leaves to be added on later. We keep discovering these new details in the overall picture as the movie progresses, getting to further understand the dynamics between these people and their relationships, and its these details that drive the plot to its climax, making this a unique and exhilarating cinematic experience.
This movie is not easy to watch, with the range of hard emotions its characters go through- weakness, need, guilt, remorse, helplessness, and so on. The hardest part is you end up knowing the characters so well, that none of them are just plain ‘bad’ to you. All you can do is sympathize with them, and wish they could somehow escape the predicament that they’re so inexplicably caught in. And that, of course, cannot happen.
Well, one of the best movies of the year.
Brilliant denouement to the laidback two acts (like any other Cronenberg feature). Its Dirty Pretty Things all over again for Steven Knight. Viggo at it again. Eastern Promises.
It’s been called unnecessarily gory, excessively strange and even downright mad by some. I’m thinking freakin’ brilliant.
“When a women takes that many jobs, we slap her down for vanity. When a man does, we call him the new Orson Welles.”
- Roger Ebert on the movie.
Couldn’t say it any better.
Also, sighted a rangefinder in the movie. Sweet.
Shoot ‘Em Up $8.00
The perfect potboiler, Owen baked with smoky Belluci, served hot.
The Indian film goer is definitely familiar with the term ‘masala movie’, which essentially means, like the exciting mixture of spices that a masala is, the movie too is a mix of popular elements - outlandish action, glamor and punchy dialogue, with a totally acceptable suspension of disbelief.
Say hello to Shoot ‘Em Up, masala movie par excellence, a feather in this genre’s cap. Where Paul Giamatti shines like never before, and Clive Owen does his familiar class act to satisfaction. This Tarantinoesque action-comedy has everything the average Mr. Smith loves: lots of shooting, innovative ways to kill, Monica Belluci the call-girl running around in her work-wear, and tons of witty lines straight out of a Frank Miller graphic novel.
Outrageously enjoyable.
Hmm.. interesting. And I think Jessica Alba is hot.
