A street-wise teen from Baltimore who has been raised by a single mother travels to New York City to spend the Christmas holiday with his estranged relatives, where he embarks on a surprising and inspirational journey. From: IMDb.com
A street-wise teen from Baltimore who has been raised by a single mother travels to New York City to spend the Christmas holiday with his estranged relatives, where he embarks on a surprising and inspirational journey. From: IMDb.com
Directed by: Kasi Lemmons
Starring: Forest Whitaker, Angela Bassett, Jennifer Hudson and others
A street-wise teen from Baltimore, raised by a single mother, travels to New York City to spend the Christmas holiday with his estranged relatives and embarks on a surprising and inspirational journey. From: IMDb.com
Directed by: Kasi Lemmons
Starring: Forest Whitaker, Angela Bassett, Jennifer Hudson and others
It's always good to see some new, big, action movies, featuring some
big name actors in it, with a decent budget behind it. It always make
you hopeful it's going to be something great and entertaining and
something that's going to take you back to the heyday of genre. It's
rare though that the actual movie also truly works out as something
great and I have to say that this movie is also far from a great one.
Still watchable and good enough but at the same time also still
somewhat disappointing, all things considering.
It's simply true that a high budget action flick, directed by Antoine
Fuqua and staring the likes of Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart and Morgan
Freeman raises certain expectations. And in that regard, this movie
never lives up to its expectations and you might even consider it to be
a somewhat disappointing one.
It mostly is disappointing since it never feels like a great action
movie, all throughout. It has some standout action moments in it but
the overall movie seems to be lacking the right sort of ideas and
script to turn the movie into a fun, action packed and exciting genre
movie as well. It has the right sort of concept but it's still lacking
the right sort of story, strangely enough.
I actually think it is due to it that the Gerard Butler character,
who's the movie its 'hero', is constantly battling a bunch of nameless
and faceless bad guys, in the hallways and rooms of the White House,
while the movie its main villain, played by Rick Yune, is spending 90%
of the time inside of a bunker, far away from all of the action. It's
an issue that easily could have been resolved by adding a bunch of
henchmen, with an minimum amount of character development, in the
movie. It just isn't all that exciting to watch Gerard Butler fighting
and killing a bunch of anonymous guys, also because you just know that
none of them is going to ever give him a really hard time, while a
henchman might be an excuse for the movie to feature some sort of
standoff, in which our main hero might actually get injured and nearly
beaten. That's already something more engaging and exciting than
anything that ever happens in the actual movie really.
That's still the biggest problem with this movie; it just isn't ever
the most exciting or engaging movie to watch. I never felt any tension,
both in regard to its story and action. It never felt to me like the
world or any of the characters were in true danger, despite everything
that the movie is doing and saying.
The action also isn't always shot that well. Or well, perhaps I should
rather say it's the editing that's lacking about it. Uses too many fast
cuts, so you can't always tell what's happening. It's also a bit too
heavy on it CGI, especially at the beginning. It still amazes me how in
this day and age sometimes CGI effects can still look so obviously
fake. It just takes me out of the movie too much, also especially since
there is absolutely no need for everything to be CGI, all of the time.
I always thought that Gerard Butler was a pretty good action star and
that may still be true but still he feels out of place within this
movie. Maybe this is the type of movie that would have benefited more
from a younger and more charismatic, new action star in it. I also had
a real hard time seeing Aaron Eckhart as the president. every time he
showed up on screen I had to remind myself he was playing the president
and not some sort of CIA agent or adviser for the president, or
anything along those lines.
But really, it's not like I ever hated this movie. Thing I still
especially liked about it was how straightforward the movie was with
some of its action. It can be a pretty brutal movie at times and it
isn't holding back with its violence, which is a good thing to note for
all of the action movie lovers out there. It's also of course a good
looking movie, despite some of its earlier mentioned criticism toward
its editing and use of CGI. Also the acting is above average, for
action movie standards at least but that's no big surprise once you
watch its cast-list.
Really not a great movie story-wise and also action-wise it isn't the
greatest movie you will see but at least it's never terribly bad or
gets truly ridicules with anything, though you still do need to have
some suspension of disbelief of course. It's perfectly watchable and
also entertaining enough, to watch it at least once.
This movie is not really my idea of an exciting and or tense one.
In the '00's and late '90's, lots of heist suddenly became popular again. Lots of movies were made to revive the genre ("Entrapment", "The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)", "The Italian Job (2003)", "Ocean's Eleven (2001)", etc) that was at its peak in the '40's. Most heist movies tried to adapt the style and atmosphere to modern standards, by putting in lots of pace and action. "The Score" tries to be more traditional, by putting in many old genre elements such as backstabbing characters, a 'good' and honest thief, a couple of twists and many other things. It however doesn't really work out. The story doesn't flow well or quick enough, mainly because it features too many sidelines and it takes unnecessary long before the main action occurs.
The story and concept of this movie might had worked out fine in a '40's film-noir type of heist movie. The story and concept just doesn't fit in a 2001 kind of environment and style of film-making. The movie is now nothing more than a slow moving not exciting enough heist movie, that is still made interesting by its big-star cast.
Of course by having a cast with actors like Robert De Niro, Edward Norton, Marlon Brando and Angela Bassett in it, expectations are high. It already is for most reason enough to watch this movie. I'll admit that with a different cast with less big names in it, I probably would have never watched this movie and I wonder who would have had. The actors give the movie a certain class and lift it to an higher level. Robert De Niro does a good job as an aging thief but even better was Edward Norton in a sort of double-role. The Marlon Brando and Angela Bassett roles don't seem to be significant enough for the movie and it seems that the movie could had done without them. They provide the movie with some unnecessary and not always interesting subplots that makes the movie unnecessary slow and too layered. Especially disappointing when considering that this was Brando's last featured film role before his death in 2004. But I'm sure that if his character was played by a different and unknown actor, I wouldn't have even complained about the character. It's just purely the fact that he is being played by Brando that makes his character and its significance for the movie so disappointing. All the more reason why it's disappointing is that this is also the only movie that features Brando and De Niro in one movie together. They both played the same character in "The Godfather" and "The Godfather: Part II" in and they're both big names in the genre, so more was to be expected from their first collaboration. I also couldn't help thinking in every of the Brando sequence's; 'Is he wearing any pants right now or not?', because of the known fact that Brando refused to wear any pants all the time during the shooting of the movie.
The movie still tries to put some life into the movie by giving it some twists and creating some unpredictable charistics for the two main characters. It does provide the movie with some good moments but it doesn't help to really make the movie a more exciting or tense one to watch. I found the movie to be terribly lacking in some good pace and tension to make this movie a pleasant- and good to watch movie. This was just not really my idea of a great, original, tense movie.
But of course the movie still does have its good points. The earlier mentioned big-star cast is definitely one of those good points. The movie also has some good production values, with good looking sets and camera-work. It makes sure that this movie still remains a perfectly watchable one to watch maybe once. After that also all of the surprises will be already gone of course.
Not my idea of a great, tense and entertaining movie but a good and interesting enough one to watch, still. I just hope that in the future Frank Oz will stick to directing only comedies instead. His talent obviously lies there.
