*** out of ****
I am going to try not to spoil the ending of this movie for you, but I might even without trying. Basically because I loved this movie for 2 hours and 20 minutes.... and hated it for the last 5. That doesn't mean it isn't worth seeing (it is), but that the emotional payoff I was looking for at the end not only never materialized, it deliberately kicked sand in it's face.
Ben Affleck is quite good in this role (and that is a generous comment from me, as there have been few roles I thought he was good in). He plays Nick Dunne, who comes home one afternoon to find his wife Amy (Rosamind Pike) missing and a glass coffee table smashed. After police search the house, the find a large amount of her blood had been cleaned off the kitchen floor. After further investigation, police find that she had been unhappy in the marriage (due to Nick's infidelity), was pregnant, had recently had her life insurance significantly increased and the couple were over $100,000 in debt.
In other words, circumstantially at least, it all looks pretty bad for Nick. He doesn't help the situation much with his apparently blase attitude about her disappearance.
So the movie starts out with the mystery - where is she, and did Nick kill her? I don't think I'm letting the cat too far out of the bag by saying that eventually, we find that not is all as it seems, and will the guilty parties be caught in the end and will the innocent be redeemed?
There are some really fun parts of this movie, especially in its lambasting of the modern media as judge and jury in any criminal case that catches the public interest. Sela Ward and Missi Pyle are of particular interest as a newswoman and a Hard Copy-type TV analyst. Kim Dickens, as the lead investigator for the police, gives her role just the right note of hard-evidence cop tempered with intuition driven doubt. The only role I found a bit lacking was Neil Patrick Harris as Amy's high-school boyfriend turned mega-millionaire. His role required an air of danger that I just don't find in Harris.
But the stars of this film are Affleck and Pike. Especially compelling is Pike, who can turn from lost little girl to hardcase abused wife to stone-cold-assassin almost at will. Their performances alone would have been worth the price of admission, but luckily the film has a lot more going for it. Some might find it a bit overlong, but I loved the pacing, as it slowly let you in on more and more of what was "really" happening, tracing out each event of the case in its entirety. My only issue was that it built you up for a high-point ending and then failed to deliver it - instead taking a different direction that left me somewhat wanting.
Friday 31 October 2014
Life of Crime (2014)
** 1/2 out of ****
I decided last night to have a look at the fairly unheralded "Life of Crime" for several reasons. First, it's an adaptation of an Elmore Leonard novel, so odds are the storyline would be decent, and maybe have a laugh or two. Second, the cast was filled with actors I have historically liked (Jennifer Aniston, Tim Robbins, Isla Fisher and John Hawkes).
Best thing I can say about it would be that it wasn't a total waste of time. The storyline is on the ridiculous side, but the cast is likeable enough (especially Aniston and Hawkes) to make it a good time waster. Trapped in a loveless marriage to an epic egomaniac (Robbins), Mickey Dawson (Aniston) is doing the social rich wife act when she is kidnapped by a couple of small timers (Hawkes and Yaslin Bey). The kidnappers know that her husband is a tax cheat and fraud artist, and ransom her for $1,000,000. Unbeknownst to them, he has just filed for divorce and comes to feel he'd be better off if he didn't pay the ransom and let her be killed.
Some of the secondary characters, such as a neo-Nazi conspirator of the kidnappers (Mark Boone Jr.) and the hapless country club idiot who wishes to have an affair with Mickey (Will Forte) add a little comic relief. Isla Fisher, as Robbins' mistress is effective as the heartless bitch who reinforces the plan to let the kidnappers kill Mickey, so it's pretty easy to pin the watchability of the film on the cast.
Better than most of the lower budget studio films these days, but a bit of a disappointment as an Elmore Leonard adaptation, you won't be unhappy with the time you spent watching it, but ultimately it's not particularly memorable.
I decided last night to have a look at the fairly unheralded "Life of Crime" for several reasons. First, it's an adaptation of an Elmore Leonard novel, so odds are the storyline would be decent, and maybe have a laugh or two. Second, the cast was filled with actors I have historically liked (Jennifer Aniston, Tim Robbins, Isla Fisher and John Hawkes).
Best thing I can say about it would be that it wasn't a total waste of time. The storyline is on the ridiculous side, but the cast is likeable enough (especially Aniston and Hawkes) to make it a good time waster. Trapped in a loveless marriage to an epic egomaniac (Robbins), Mickey Dawson (Aniston) is doing the social rich wife act when she is kidnapped by a couple of small timers (Hawkes and Yaslin Bey). The kidnappers know that her husband is a tax cheat and fraud artist, and ransom her for $1,000,000. Unbeknownst to them, he has just filed for divorce and comes to feel he'd be better off if he didn't pay the ransom and let her be killed.
Some of the secondary characters, such as a neo-Nazi conspirator of the kidnappers (Mark Boone Jr.) and the hapless country club idiot who wishes to have an affair with Mickey (Will Forte) add a little comic relief. Isla Fisher, as Robbins' mistress is effective as the heartless bitch who reinforces the plan to let the kidnappers kill Mickey, so it's pretty easy to pin the watchability of the film on the cast.
Better than most of the lower budget studio films these days, but a bit of a disappointment as an Elmore Leonard adaptation, you won't be unhappy with the time you spent watching it, but ultimately it's not particularly memorable.
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