There's a lot of good stuff in this movie:
The dialogue is really strong and surprisingly literate. Grace Zabriskie, acting god. Glenn Quinn, the best of the strong young cast. Some great camera work and good use of music.
Then there's the bad:
It drags in places. Oddly, I wonder if the deleted subplot would
have made it work better. The suspense doesn't really hold up well. It's pretty easy to guess
who's going to be left standing at the end, so the rest of the killings
are fairly predictable. If you compare it to the original "Rope," it says a lot about changes
in filmmaking, not all of them good. (Hitchcock and Arthur
Laurents only needed one murder to generate lots more suspense). Grace Zabriskie isn't in the film nearly long enough. Glenn Quinn died young. A terrible loss. After awhile, the other characters become so obnoxious you may
be rooting for them to bite the dust.
And the interesting: Among the cast, I noticed a "Get me a Katie Holmes" type and a
"Get me a Matthew McCaunneghey" type. When do we start
seeing younger versions of these two? In the former case, not for
a while, I hope.
Overall: A good rental for a slow night.
The dialogue is really strong and surprisingly literate. Grace Zabriskie, acting god. Glenn Quinn, the best of the strong young cast. Some great camera work and good use of music.
Then there's the bad:
It drags in places. Oddly, I wonder if the deleted subplot would
have made it work better. The suspense doesn't really hold up well. It's pretty easy to guess
who's going to be left standing at the end, so the rest of the killings
are fairly predictable. If you compare it to the original "Rope," it says a lot about changes
in filmmaking, not all of them good. (Hitchcock and Arthur
Laurents only needed one murder to generate lots more suspense). Grace Zabriskie isn't in the film nearly long enough. Glenn Quinn died young. A terrible loss. After awhile, the other characters become so obnoxious you may
be rooting for them to bite the dust.
And the interesting: Among the cast, I noticed a "Get me a Katie Holmes" type and a
"Get me a Matthew McCaunneghey" type. When do we start
seeing younger versions of these two? In the former case, not for
a while, I hope.
Overall: A good rental for a slow night.