Reviews

Possible spoilers ahead.

I don't think this movie was a political stance at all. How can it be, when the "liberal" anti-death-penalty group portrayed is just a bunch of fanatics? Yes, it showed their point of view and did not show the pro-death-penalty point of view, but since they are discredited by the end as, basically, lunatics... the movie is NOT taking their side. It is not taking any side - it's just your basic mystery/thriller/law drama.

The movie plot has a lot of holes to me - the biggest being what's the point of the whole interview process anyway? The tape was already in existence and could have been released by anyone. So why play with the reporter?

I wanted to like this movie, but just couldn't.

There were not many characters in this movie, and they are portrayed with a "rich-people-are-bad, poor-people-are-good" theme that is of course far too simplistic... But the main relationship between Devon and Trent just fascinates me and makes this movie a keeper in my book.

Possible spoilers ahead:

I like the way Devon keeps flip-flopping about who or what is "evil". First evil is some vague thing outside the gated community. Then the evil is in Trent's trailer. When she and Trent are becoming good friends, the evil is something that is after the two of them. When Devon kills the dog, suddenly Devon sees him as the evil one. And then when Trent is hurt, she changes her mind again. I remember being scared of adults when I was a kid, never knowing which ones I should trust or not, and so Devon's confusion rang true with me.

As for the friendship, it brought tears to my eyes over and over. Yes, girls are not and should not be encouraged to wander into the woods after strange men. But Devon was lonely for a FRIEND, and Trent was lonely for a FRIEND (as most men would be - the few perverts unfortunately give all men a bad name). Devon's interest was so simple and pure - I loved the scene when Trent cut his finger, for example. Devon's view of the friendship was a prepubescent one where sticking someone's finger in your mouth is platonic, but Trent as an adult of course saw reason to freak out. I like that this movie completely avoided the "I have a crush on you" scene that almost every movie involving a girl and a man throws in - there was no "crush" here, just true friendship.

This movie made me remember being a ten-eleven-twelve year old girl and romanticizing everything that happened, but in a romantic-innocent way instead of in the romantic-sexy way that hit five or six years later! That's part of what made me sniffle during the movie - life will just never look quite like that again I'm afraid...

I used to like Clint Eastwood, but I just don't know anymore.

SPOILERS!!!! Major SPOILERS ahead!!!

I found this movie predictable in the worst possible ways. My partner and I kept looking over at each other and saying things like "he'll be sleeping with her in about fifteen minutes", "I bet both murders were by the same person", "I bet it was the code killer guy trying to get Clint a heart", "I bet the little kid will solve the code", "I bet the bad guy is right on top of the boat", and the unforgivable "I bet his best friend will turn out to be the killer".

And we were right every time. I kept hoping we wouldn't be, partly because I wanted to be surprised and partly because everything we predicted was so horribly cliche and unrealistic to the point of being ridiculous.

And I forgot to mention that the acting was not good.

I thought the bad guy was "too bad". Maybe there are people in the world who are that bad, but I don't find movies about them very interesting. I did not see any complexity in his character at all, and no redeeming qualities - the witch in Wizard of Oz was more likeable.

As for the "good cop", he was just a greedy wimp. (SPOILERS) Sure, he turns down the buttload of money he's offered after the bad guy kills the drug dealer... but does that matter? Through most of the movie he puts up with or participates in illegal activities "against his will" - why? - because he wants to work his way up the ladder to a better job - why? - for the MONEY. "You should see the houses THEY live in" he says to his wife in the first scene. He acts so righteously offended by the bad cop right from the beginning, but goes along and goes along because he wants to attain his career goals. Some moral high-ground, huh?

The bad cop was bad right from the start - the rookie had no reason to respect him, take his advice, or want to follow in his footsteps. I much prefer corruption movies where the bad guy's evilness slowly leaks out into the story, and where the rookie at first has reason to trust and respect him. The moral dilemma and internal conflict of having to change your view of someone is just much more interesting than knowing from the start that he's a jerk.

So the two main characters just left me feeling nothing except annoyed.

Then, there's the plot. I found too many things hard to swallow - that Washington's character was so very very bad and had apparently never been caught at it (yeah, there are corrupt cops, but this was too much), that he would involve the rookie in THAT MUCH corruption on his first day as a "test" of his character, that Washington's character thought even for a second that the rookie would just buy into his bulls*** and cover for him... I thought it was contrived and basically made no sense.

The only thing that I *did* like plot-wise was the most contrived thing of all - the young woman the rookie saved turning out to be the cousin of the man who later would have killed him. Now THAT'S a contrivance I would have liked if the rest of the movie hadn't annoyed me so much. Sure, it's totally unrealistic, but at least it had some sort of point to make.

All in all, it kept me awake and provided minimal entertainment. It was interesting seeing Washington being a bad man. But I wouldn't see it again or recommend it.

(SPOILERS!!)

I really loved this movie. I do not think he was a ghost. I think of it more like Slaughterhouse-5, time travel sort of stuff. He kept jumping forward and backward in time, from before the war to after the war to during the war and back again, never knowing where he was going to wake up next. He died in the war, but that doesn't mean the post-war stuff didn't happen, or that he was a ghost when it happened. I think he lived his life in random order, and happened to die in the middle of his life instead of at the end of it like one would expect.

Each time he woke up, he didn't know which woman would be in bed next to him, or if his son was alive or not. I particularly liked the part when he woke up next to Sarah, and he said "I had the worst dream. I was living with that woman Jezebel from the post office. It was horrible!", and then the look on his face when he woke up again in the bathtub with Jezebel next to him.

All in all, I just felt so much for Tim Robbin's character, and I was so caught up in the whole experience of the war scenes and the hallucinations... I have watched this one twice, and I will watch it again.

I finally rented Life is Beautiful yesterday. I was disappointed - and I wasn't expecting too much.

As a comedy it fell flat to me. The movie leading up to the characters' imprisonment bored me to tears - I did not find the slapstick funny, and I normally love slapstick. I found the main character (the father) annoying.

Once the plot moved to the concentration camp, I still did not find it funny, but that's fine with me as I would probably be mildly concerned if it was funny. The only thing I found very unique or interesting about the film was the made-up "game"... but that wore very thin and got boring, too.

Any genuine feeling I felt while watching this film came from inside me, from how I already feel about the Holocaust - the movie didn't move me at all.

SPOILER --

Well, I was moved a little, at the end. Moved to wonder "oh, my god, who is going to explain to that kid what REALLY happened, when and how will they explain it, and how will that make him feel??" But those were totally hypothetical questions, because I never really bought it that the "game" ruse would work.

END SPOILER--

From looking at the comments, it looks like I'm in the minority here. The movie didn't impress either of my housemates, either, though.