I was really excited when I saw the trailer for this film, especially since there seems to be so little encouragement to go to theaters lately. Brian Cox is an easy draw for me. ( I even sat through Troy
. well Pitt was OK too) But while Mr. Cox did a fine job, and I enjoyed watching the film, I think it suffers from a sort of identity crisis.
I have no real criticism on the particulars of the film's execution. It was directed well enough as far as a layman like myself could tell. It was well acted and well scripted, and the story moves a reasonable pace. I just am not sure what it is really about or I thought it would be about more. I think the fault is in the theme of the film. IMHO, the story should have been more than a bad seed story or bad seeds in this case, played by Tom Sizemore and Noel Fisher. I think that good v evil morality tale approach was a fallacy especially in these times when the zeitgeist seems a conflicted, self-reflective creature.
Cox is captivating in his role, his screen presence is not lacking in any sense. But he is painted as naive, unbelievably trusting in the elemental goodness in man. OK, maybe I am jaded, but Avery Ludlow does not seem real to me, not as a man who lives in and does business in the real world. And Sizemore and Fisher, by contrast, come off as too archetypically sociopathic. Granted the film does not embrace stereotypes and moves toward the violent conclusion in a believable fashion, but I was hoping for a more nuanced subtext.
I have no real criticism on the particulars of the film's execution. It was directed well enough as far as a layman like myself could tell. It was well acted and well scripted, and the story moves a reasonable pace. I just am not sure what it is really about or I thought it would be about more. I think the fault is in the theme of the film. IMHO, the story should have been more than a bad seed story or bad seeds in this case, played by Tom Sizemore and Noel Fisher. I think that good v evil morality tale approach was a fallacy especially in these times when the zeitgeist seems a conflicted, self-reflective creature.
Cox is captivating in his role, his screen presence is not lacking in any sense. But he is painted as naive, unbelievably trusting in the elemental goodness in man. OK, maybe I am jaded, but Avery Ludlow does not seem real to me, not as a man who lives in and does business in the real world. And Sizemore and Fisher, by contrast, come off as too archetypically sociopathic. Granted the film does not embrace stereotypes and moves toward the violent conclusion in a believable fashion, but I was hoping for a more nuanced subtext.