I'm not one for straight-to-DVD fare, and this reminded me why. I'll say first off, Ruffalo and Hawke are both excellent in this, but honestly, what's the point? You've basically got another crime-doesn't-pay vicious-circle yadda yadda movie about crappy people living crappy crime-ridden lives. The movie tries to make Amanda Peet trashy by giving her horrible bangs. We know that handsome, chiseled Ethan Hawke is on the wrong side of the law because he has a silver tooth. Mark Ruffalo basically goes from just a thug to a level-10 crack addict in about two scenes.
This is a nicely shot, nicely cut, nicely acted movie that just doesn't have a purpose. There's no themes explored here we haven't seen covered before, and better, down to the Boston setting. It's just two hours of depression, ended by a really cheesy ending with text telling us what happened to the characters afterwards. You don't get to do that with fiction! It's pointless! Telling us with two lines of text that Mark Ruffalo became a good dad? You can tell us Ethan Hawke flew out of jail and became king of the Moon Men, because it's fiction! The whole point is to leave that up to the viewer, leave them with something to think about.
Sorry if you liked this one, but there's just better ways to spend two hours of your life.
This is a nicely shot, nicely cut, nicely acted movie that just doesn't have a purpose. There's no themes explored here we haven't seen covered before, and better, down to the Boston setting. It's just two hours of depression, ended by a really cheesy ending with text telling us what happened to the characters afterwards. You don't get to do that with fiction! It's pointless! Telling us with two lines of text that Mark Ruffalo became a good dad? You can tell us Ethan Hawke flew out of jail and became king of the Moon Men, because it's fiction! The whole point is to leave that up to the viewer, leave them with something to think about.
Sorry if you liked this one, but there's just better ways to spend two hours of your life.