Ashley Judd can be a pretty good actress. Go and watch the Yah-Yah-Sisters if you need proof. Even in this awful stinker she shows her potential. But even Laurence Olivier would have been crushed by the stupidity of the screenplay and the lackluster directing. The story begins interesting enough with introducing this tough cat of a policewoman beginning work at homicide and having affairs all over town. But for a long while the film doesn't know what it wants to be: a woman-with-problems-movie or a thriller. The woman-with-problems-movie is too banal, the thriller too slow and not frightening enough. And Ashley Judd gets crushed in between. Her agent should really look out for much much better scripts.
Reviews
6 Reviews
The Italian Job
(2003)
Well made but pretty adolescent
1 December 2004
This is a heist movie. I am fine with heist movies but they have to be ironic (like Ocean's Eleven). After all we watch thieves and in the case of The Italian Job we watch pretty adolescent thieves taking what they do much too serious. Heist movies are to be about stealing something in a very elaborate and cool way, not about very deep emotional problems. So this film here mixes cool, state-of-the-art technological stealing and a revenge story. And Edward Norton's villain is much too mean, he destroys the ironic heist story. It is the same problem with the James Bond movies: it is pretty tasteless to see Bond tortured. Bond is supposed to be a comic strip hero, not really serious. Because if you take the characters in this movie serious you want to sink them all in prisons to teach them a lesson how to behave in the world of adults.
The Cooler
(2003)
Alec Baldwin is great, the rest okay
1 December 2004
I wonder why this movie didn't get me as much as I thought it would when I rented it. It is a nice movie, with a fine message, a good cast, an interesting story but something was missing and I don't know what it is. Maybe I watched William H. Macy too often as a loser, maybe there were one or two plot holes too many in the story, maybe this very story was too banal after all. Anyway, it is an okay movie to watch it, to see a good Macy, a fine Bello (an actress we want to see more of) and a splendid Alec Baldwin giving a career-defining performance as a brutal casino-boss realising just how hollow and unhappy he is. But I still wonder: what was missing?
Mystic River
(2003)
Outrageous acting, dead serious movie
1 December 2004
This is not a movie you will smile after. It is a dead serious meditation on values and destiny, on characters and how they can be destroyed. If you believe in justice you will hate the screenplay. But if you're a sucker for first class acting, dense atmosphere and serious films which are thought-provoking this is your movie. Literally all the actors (and I mean ALL) are totally on spot. Not a weak link in the ensemble. The reason I didn't give this one a 10 (I gave a 9) are some lines (especially by Sean Penn's character) which are too theatrical for my taste. Hey, a small-time crook doesn't talk like King Lear, does he? But the rest is admiration for a bleak and brilliant view on American life today.
Complex, intellectual, touching
1 December 2004
If you hated Being John Malkovich and Adaption avoid this movie. If you love these movies you're in for a treat. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind is complex as the other Kaufman flicks, intellectual as them but infinitely more touching. It is a philosophical meditation on the worth of memories. Yes, it is a film even more out of bounds than Being John Malkovich, masterly edited by the way, but it transports genuine feeling due to the fine acting by Jim Carrey (who I loathed in Liar, Liar), Kate Winslet (one of the ten best actresses of our time and maybe of the entire history of film) and Kirsten Dunst. Rent it, watch it, watch it again, watch it a third time, call your lover and say things you always wanted to say but were to shy to do it. After this movie you won't want to waste time any longer.
Emma
(1996)
Warm-hearted adaptation
1 December 2004
This is a warm-hearted, fine adaptation of Jane Austen's novel. The film accentuates the harmonious side of the story, entering not too deep into the psychologically complex layers of the plot. It is an entertaining movie with fine actors: Gwyneth Paltrow is better than in Shakespeare In Love, Jeremy Northam is convincing as a fine specimen of a gentleman of the English gentry, the always reliable Toni Collette, Juliet Stevenson and especially Sophie Thompson support convincingly. The only thing I disliked was the music (which ironically won an Oscar): the composer seems to say "Hey, let's be jolly, it's a comedy, you know?" all the time. But that's the only thing that bothered me. The rest is fine, nice entertainment.
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