It's obvious that this movie got heavily inspired by many other genre movies. It tries to be just like them but it perhaps tries a bit too hard. It tries to combine basically every element that makes these type of old fashioned crime movies so great. It's just too much and it doesn't make the movie a very consistent one either. It therefore all also doesn't work out too original, which makes this movie feel a pretty redundant and pointless one, that you can easily do without.
No, it by no means is an horrible movie but it's also not one I'm eager on ever seeing again. It's not really a fun or entertaining movie to watch and it takes itself very serious.
A problem of this movie is also really its story. The movie doesn't begin off too bad but the more characters gets introduced in it, the worse it gets. I started too loose interest real fast in this movie. It's incredibly annoying how basically every character has his or her own agenda in this movie. The movie should had sticked more to its two main leads, played by Ryan Phillippe and Benicio Del Toro. That way the movie would had been better to watch and possibly also more fun. Now instead the movie starts giving you an headache with all of its characters and its long dialog. In the end you also just really don't know who is fighting who anymore and why.
I can really see and appreciate what director Christopher McQuarrie was trying to do with this movie but I think he should just stick to his writing career. He can write great and also complicated stories, he just can't tell them very well, as this movie proofs.
For this movie he still got a whole bunch of well known names to appear in his movie. Besides Ryan Phillippe and Benicio Del Toro, also Juliette Lewis, Taye Diggs and James Caan make their appearances. In a way it's also really an actors movie, since it's often filed with some long dialog. Nevertheless there also is plenty or room for some action, which still helps to spice things up a little for the movie. The action is simply great for most part.
The movie never really gets horrible to watch but it also never really becomes an intriguing or entertaining one. It's a movie you can easily do without.
6/10
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