As a big fan of film noir, The trailer grabbed my attention with some pretty entertaining visuals and some intense music.
It took me about 25 minutes for my enthusiasm to dwindle. Once the feeling set in, I was unable to shake it off.
Credit where credit is due, Thomas Jane deserves a pat on the back. With roughly 80 percent of screen time, I'm glad to say that he has the least cringe worthy moments of the movie. The odds of his accomplishment were stacked against him, since he is given nothing more to play with than a character that is riddled with more cliché's than the body count he racks up through the film.
Very few other cast members came out of this with any dignity to their performances. Two that are worth mentioning are French Stewart, who plays a talentless club singer. The few scenes he has, are pure gold. The other performance that I thought had merit, came from Leland Orser. I have seen him a fair number of times playing less-than-stable parts and it was pleasing to know that he could play against the more colourful characters too.
It is important for me to make it clear that I don't think any actor/actress was to blame for the lack of entertainment in this movie. The script was poorly written. Malone can be summed up in three words.
Tough. Alcoholic. Vengeful These three things are hammered into the audience every minute from the establishing shot to the end credits.
The character of Evelyn was used to contain about,7 stereotypes of character and plot devices that you would associate with the film genre. It made it impossible for the actress to connect with the audience and by the end you feel nothing for her. No anger, no love, just nothing.
Again, the performance by Elsa Pataky gets two thumbs up for trying to play with the crap hand that she had been dealt. The problem comes from laziness in narrative structure.
That is the sentiment that I have taken from this film, that the puppet masters behind this calamity were lazy. The best example I can pull from the movie was in the third act. Malone take out an adversary and there is one of the most poorly edited sequences I have seen in some time. I will not spoil the ending for you, but If you have the ability, watch the last (approx) 20 minutes, it should not be hard to find.
It took me about 25 minutes for my enthusiasm to dwindle. Once the feeling set in, I was unable to shake it off.
Credit where credit is due, Thomas Jane deserves a pat on the back. With roughly 80 percent of screen time, I'm glad to say that he has the least cringe worthy moments of the movie. The odds of his accomplishment were stacked against him, since he is given nothing more to play with than a character that is riddled with more cliché's than the body count he racks up through the film.
Very few other cast members came out of this with any dignity to their performances. Two that are worth mentioning are French Stewart, who plays a talentless club singer. The few scenes he has, are pure gold. The other performance that I thought had merit, came from Leland Orser. I have seen him a fair number of times playing less-than-stable parts and it was pleasing to know that he could play against the more colourful characters too.
It is important for me to make it clear that I don't think any actor/actress was to blame for the lack of entertainment in this movie. The script was poorly written. Malone can be summed up in three words.
Tough. Alcoholic. Vengeful These three things are hammered into the audience every minute from the establishing shot to the end credits.
The character of Evelyn was used to contain about,7 stereotypes of character and plot devices that you would associate with the film genre. It made it impossible for the actress to connect with the audience and by the end you feel nothing for her. No anger, no love, just nothing.
Again, the performance by Elsa Pataky gets two thumbs up for trying to play with the crap hand that she had been dealt. The problem comes from laziness in narrative structure.
That is the sentiment that I have taken from this film, that the puppet masters behind this calamity were lazy. The best example I can pull from the movie was in the third act. Malone take out an adversary and there is one of the most poorly edited sequences I have seen in some time. I will not spoil the ending for you, but If you have the ability, watch the last (approx) 20 minutes, it should not be hard to find.