Curtis Simpson (CurtisoftheDead)

Man this film was all over the place so I'll just break it down technically. The camera work was great throughout the whole movie. The performances were decent. Brody delivers his usual emo child smarm and Ruffalo was... some guy. Weisz steals the show here though and Rinko Kikuchi was pretty good as well. Aesthetically the movie is very nice and the characters are all likeable and well developed and the story is cute... at first. This movie suffers heavily from a few things. First of all a poor final act and basically the whole second half is poorly written. The pacing of the film also gets fairly awful. A common complaint would be that this film has a million endings and I will sit in that complaint boat as well. With so many faux endings in this flick, by the time the actual one came around I had lost attention and didn't care about the plot or characters anymore. The film should have picked one place to end it abruptly on a weird note and save losing the viewers attention, or just cut out the 30-45 minutes of BS endings before the actual end because it was all FLUFF. It was as if the director was trying to emphasize the drive to pull the perfect con or just flat out be clever, and achieves neither. I got the perfect con angle within the first 10 minutes of the film and the last half of the film isn't so much at all clever as very twisty. To say the second/third acts were clever would be like saying M. Night Shymalan is clever even though he is in fact a retarded person.

ANYWAY I digress.

Who should watch this?

1) M. Night Shymalan fans
2) Dim people who like twists and think they're clever... sorry redundancy
3) People who enjoy sarcastic hats
4) Rachel Weisz fans
5) Anyone who can tolerate severe style over substance.

Why have I not seen this movie until now? This film is one of the strongest performances I've ever seen in a movie. Harvey Keitel drives this film, which may be the only complaint one can deliver about it. While the script is by no means a masterpiece, it is a solid character study. If it weren't for Keitels delivery it would probably never have been more than that. The cinematography is average, some decent shots but nothing spectacular. Everything seemed to fit together perfectly though. The screenplay is gritty by nature, examining the darkest depths of a human being with every vice imaginable. The shooting is gritty and clearly rushed, Keitels performance is as gritty and uncomfortable and emotional as it could have been. It all meshes so perfectly.

Something of note is the intense Catholic allegory throughout the film. Essentially having the rape of a nun drive the plot is a heavy plot device, especially the gravity of it. Seemingly Keitel is the epitomy of a soulless man, doing despicable acts without remorse just as naturally as breathing. The attempt at atonement at the end of the film followed by a seemingly self induced surrendered martyrdom all feeds into the allegory without pushing it too heavily. The argument I hear a lot about this movie regarding it being sacralgious or anti-christian is clearly coming from people who didn't understand the film at all.

Anyway, lets break it down:

Who should see this?

1) Harvey Keitel Fans
2) Sinners
3) Heathens
4) Degenerates
5) Anyone who wants to see a breath-taking character performance
6) Fans of the grittiest of gritty.
7) Tarantino Fans
8) Catholics

Probably my new favorite movie. Hilarious, deep, existential, gorgeous touching. Phenomenal.

Very likely my favorite film, although it's hard for me to have a favorite. Great philosophy and existentialism at a not-too-heavy level. Mixed well with a well balanced dose of quirky comedy. Stellar performances from Schwartzman and Hoffman and, dare I say, Wahlberg. I never liked Marky Mark before this film. He has potential. I could blab about this movie for an eternity or I could just tell you to go see it.