Father-son relationships of two families are compared and contrasted in the context of a crime which they both fall victim to.
One thing you can't fault writer-director Derek Cianfrance for is ambition, and he certainly deserves an A for that, or even an A+, because he tackled a difficult subject in a novel way, probably more to avoid slipping into the pit of mawkishness and sentimentality, than for a desire to appeal to a broader base of crime movie fans. Laudable, indeed, but I think he has inevitably fallen victim to a particular movie kind of Catch-22: in order to make the subject more palatable, he's dressed it up in attractive crime movie 'wolf's clothing', and therefore muddied - and even compromised - his intent. Inevitably, also -and to meet both demands - he's employed a multi- character story which is just too contrived and contains far too many implausible situations and coincidences to explain the relationship, satisfactorily. In contrast, if he had tackled the subject more subtly,and plausibly, he was always going to turn his intended audience off. Particularly for a mainstream Hollywood movie.
Catch-22; hoist by his own petard;fall between two stools. Whatever.
Aside from its ambition - for which I stuck with it to the end, despite my huge reservations - I enjoyed it mostly for constituent elements, and in particular for the acting. Bradley Cooper - who plays the guilt-wracked rookie cop - is unfamiliar to me, but his performance above all in a scene with a psychiatrist is as good a piece of acting as you'll see anywhere. All done with his eyes, and face, and demeanour - which is what distinguishes the best screen actors; he's largely a slave to the script, otherwise, but this one scene is evidence enough that he's worth watching out for. And to prove how good that performance was, he more than held his own against notorious scene-stealer, Harris Yulin. Yulin - one of my very favourite character actors of the past 40 years - threatened to grab the film and take it home with him in his pocket, but Cooper - and quite right, too - was having none of it: and he proved it, especially, in a swimming-pool scene they shared. Ryan Gosling, who plays the bike-rider errant-father turned to crime - and who'd I expected to be the major focus of the film - is somebody that on the evidence of this and 'Drive' I remain unconvinced by: he's all about bleached-blond wistfulness, and mumbling - and now pecs and six-pack, apparently; I breathed an audible sigh of relief when the Cooper story took centre-stage.
Dane DeHaan as Gosling's son reminded me of a young Leonardo di Caprio, and was quietly effective; I wouldn't be as dismissive of Cooper son Emory Cohen's performance as one reviewer - certainly not on the evidence of one performance: his annoying mannerisms might just be down to script requirements; Eva Mendes looked great in 'Holy Motors', but I've never been convinced by her as an actor; Ray Liotta seems irreversibly typecast, now, and here he just seemed to be 'phoning it in'. I'd contrast his performance with James Remar's in 'Fear X': he showed genuine breadth,there, and willingness to experiment, and to break free from movie-villain typecasting.
Script and acting aside: The soundtrack was almost unbearably intrusive, at times, - particularly in scenes of approaching conflict which the composer seemed determined to forewarn us: a musical 'look out, behind you', as it were. Cinematography was top-notch: particularly impressive was the fatal chase scene, but close-ups were effectively used, also.
Overall, the film was well made and well-intentioned, but maybe the director needs to hire an independent scriptwriter, or choose a subject which allows for a more subtle telling of a tale, or imparting of a message.
One thing you can't fault writer-director Derek Cianfrance for is ambition, and he certainly deserves an A for that, or even an A+, because he tackled a difficult subject in a novel way, probably more to avoid slipping into the pit of mawkishness and sentimentality, than for a desire to appeal to a broader base of crime movie fans. Laudable, indeed, but I think he has inevitably fallen victim to a particular movie kind of Catch-22: in order to make the subject more palatable, he's dressed it up in attractive crime movie 'wolf's clothing', and therefore muddied - and even compromised - his intent. Inevitably, also -and to meet both demands - he's employed a multi- character story which is just too contrived and contains far too many implausible situations and coincidences to explain the relationship, satisfactorily. In contrast, if he had tackled the subject more subtly,and plausibly, he was always going to turn his intended audience off. Particularly for a mainstream Hollywood movie.
Catch-22; hoist by his own petard;fall between two stools. Whatever.
Aside from its ambition - for which I stuck with it to the end, despite my huge reservations - I enjoyed it mostly for constituent elements, and in particular for the acting. Bradley Cooper - who plays the guilt-wracked rookie cop - is unfamiliar to me, but his performance above all in a scene with a psychiatrist is as good a piece of acting as you'll see anywhere. All done with his eyes, and face, and demeanour - which is what distinguishes the best screen actors; he's largely a slave to the script, otherwise, but this one scene is evidence enough that he's worth watching out for. And to prove how good that performance was, he more than held his own against notorious scene-stealer, Harris Yulin. Yulin - one of my very favourite character actors of the past 40 years - threatened to grab the film and take it home with him in his pocket, but Cooper - and quite right, too - was having none of it: and he proved it, especially, in a swimming-pool scene they shared. Ryan Gosling, who plays the bike-rider errant-father turned to crime - and who'd I expected to be the major focus of the film - is somebody that on the evidence of this and 'Drive' I remain unconvinced by: he's all about bleached-blond wistfulness, and mumbling - and now pecs and six-pack, apparently; I breathed an audible sigh of relief when the Cooper story took centre-stage.
Dane DeHaan as Gosling's son reminded me of a young Leonardo di Caprio, and was quietly effective; I wouldn't be as dismissive of Cooper son Emory Cohen's performance as one reviewer - certainly not on the evidence of one performance: his annoying mannerisms might just be down to script requirements; Eva Mendes looked great in 'Holy Motors', but I've never been convinced by her as an actor; Ray Liotta seems irreversibly typecast, now, and here he just seemed to be 'phoning it in'. I'd contrast his performance with James Remar's in 'Fear X': he showed genuine breadth,there, and willingness to experiment, and to break free from movie-villain typecasting.
Script and acting aside: The soundtrack was almost unbearably intrusive, at times, - particularly in scenes of approaching conflict which the composer seemed determined to forewarn us: a musical 'look out, behind you', as it were. Cinematography was top-notch: particularly impressive was the fatal chase scene, but close-ups were effectively used, also.
Overall, the film was well made and well-intentioned, but maybe the director needs to hire an independent scriptwriter, or choose a subject which allows for a more subtle telling of a tale, or imparting of a message.