All the reviews I've read here compare this film to its progenitor, which is pointless to the film-goer. The first question must be, as with any film, is THIS creation any good?
Well, it has its limitations, that's for sure. More of that below. But it does have something. There is some clunkiness, some awkwardness, some unease, that makes it more interesting than mere genre. How much of this is intentional, it's hard to tell, but that's part of the draw: it is quite unaffected.
For a start we have Julia Roberts playing a tragic, frumpy, charmless plain sourpuss with dark bags under the eyes, cracked lips and no makeover. The neat part about this is that if you're as used as her to glinting those perfect teeth to the camera, this role isn't likely to be convincing. But she does pull it off, and it succeeds partly because we look into her eyes and see that, within, there is absence (is that what the title is about, by the way? it doesn't come across otherwise). We all think we know our Julia, glamour and presence, so when we see her like this we can readily feel her loss, and imagine her private journey into hell all the more. Take an unknown actress in the same role and you'd have to do half an hour's prior character development to get close to the same effect.
Now Nicole Kidman and Chiwetel Ejiofor, the clumsy preppy princess and the black pauper, avoiding copulation for the duration. I'm not sure we glimpse how they feel or what they do, it's so understated it's invisible, and we have to fill in the gaps. Spoiler alert: it probably never happens. Or maybe it does, it's just offscreen. At the end the husband says Chiwetel's been in the marriage all the time. Not showing the passion on screen: we're definitely not playing this for the box office now are we? He walks her to her car. They like it, they do it again... Unless of course the film had come out twenty years earlier, in which case the studio would have cut the risky interracial. So is the editing and production timid, self-conscious, affected, innocent, playful, teasing, post-modern ironic or just botched? Well it comes out unresolved, and it worked that way for me.
There's some arty/independent touches to the general production too, including a garish single-take swoop into the LA baseball stadium that may be commonplace in the age of drones and CGI but is still more ambitious than the average Hollywood gloss thriller.
And Alfred Molina as the DA. A much more acceptable rendition than the usual growling apparatchik in this role, but Alfred is still playing a stereotype of himself, I fear. This is fine for the picture but bad for Alfred, who deserves better, and has proved it when allowed.
Finally, unfortunately, we come to the story. There are good aspects of it, that's for sure. We have a striking morality play in which the personal tragic consequences of consumption by hatred, and inability to forgive, are played to the female hilt, with consequences that eventually spill out of her own torment and tortures into the death of a fellow cop, a segment that is again thoroughly understated compared to the genre norm.
But as to the central plot, I'm very sorry, but the postulate is preposterous and underdeveloped, this time in a way that doesn't work. Cop's daughter gets killed, but criminal is protected from pursuit because he is undercover working on the LA 911 plot? No,sorry. There are NO circumstances, including the terrified post-911 panic, when such a CONSIDERED conspiracy to prevent a murdering rapist - especially one who has perpetrated his deeds against one of the City's finest - from being brought to justice, would be contemplated in any Western liberal state that practises even imperfect, and sometimes somewhat corrupt, justice and equality under the law, let alone be tolerated by ANY police department. Repeat, no circumstances. This is such a strong and true instinct that it became impossible for me to suspend disbelief through the action, at which point I was left only with the consolation that perhaps it might just work if we reset to where justice for cop-family killers is less instinctive. Is there such a place ...
Well, it has its limitations, that's for sure. More of that below. But it does have something. There is some clunkiness, some awkwardness, some unease, that makes it more interesting than mere genre. How much of this is intentional, it's hard to tell, but that's part of the draw: it is quite unaffected.
For a start we have Julia Roberts playing a tragic, frumpy, charmless plain sourpuss with dark bags under the eyes, cracked lips and no makeover. The neat part about this is that if you're as used as her to glinting those perfect teeth to the camera, this role isn't likely to be convincing. But she does pull it off, and it succeeds partly because we look into her eyes and see that, within, there is absence (is that what the title is about, by the way? it doesn't come across otherwise). We all think we know our Julia, glamour and presence, so when we see her like this we can readily feel her loss, and imagine her private journey into hell all the more. Take an unknown actress in the same role and you'd have to do half an hour's prior character development to get close to the same effect.
Now Nicole Kidman and Chiwetel Ejiofor, the clumsy preppy princess and the black pauper, avoiding copulation for the duration. I'm not sure we glimpse how they feel or what they do, it's so understated it's invisible, and we have to fill in the gaps. Spoiler alert: it probably never happens. Or maybe it does, it's just offscreen. At the end the husband says Chiwetel's been in the marriage all the time. Not showing the passion on screen: we're definitely not playing this for the box office now are we? He walks her to her car. They like it, they do it again... Unless of course the film had come out twenty years earlier, in which case the studio would have cut the risky interracial. So is the editing and production timid, self-conscious, affected, innocent, playful, teasing, post-modern ironic or just botched? Well it comes out unresolved, and it worked that way for me.
There's some arty/independent touches to the general production too, including a garish single-take swoop into the LA baseball stadium that may be commonplace in the age of drones and CGI but is still more ambitious than the average Hollywood gloss thriller.
And Alfred Molina as the DA. A much more acceptable rendition than the usual growling apparatchik in this role, but Alfred is still playing a stereotype of himself, I fear. This is fine for the picture but bad for Alfred, who deserves better, and has proved it when allowed.
Finally, unfortunately, we come to the story. There are good aspects of it, that's for sure. We have a striking morality play in which the personal tragic consequences of consumption by hatred, and inability to forgive, are played to the female hilt, with consequences that eventually spill out of her own torment and tortures into the death of a fellow cop, a segment that is again thoroughly understated compared to the genre norm.
But as to the central plot, I'm very sorry, but the postulate is preposterous and underdeveloped, this time in a way that doesn't work. Cop's daughter gets killed, but criminal is protected from pursuit because he is undercover working on the LA 911 plot? No,sorry. There are NO circumstances, including the terrified post-911 panic, when such a CONSIDERED conspiracy to prevent a murdering rapist - especially one who has perpetrated his deeds against one of the City's finest - from being brought to justice, would be contemplated in any Western liberal state that practises even imperfect, and sometimes somewhat corrupt, justice and equality under the law, let alone be tolerated by ANY police department. Repeat, no circumstances. This is such a strong and true instinct that it became impossible for me to suspend disbelief through the action, at which point I was left only with the consolation that perhaps it might just work if we reset to where justice for cop-family killers is less instinctive. Is there such a place ...