Reviews

The tone and the content of this beautiful and profound story is set in a few words by One Stab, the Cree man who conducts in a subtle way the background of the narrative: "He who listens to his inner voices and acts accordingly, is bound to become either a madman or a legend" I would just add "Or both". Everything begins in an idyllic place in a northern corner of Montana which is better connected to the old world through Western Canada. Alas, the seed are already sown in the mind of colonel Ludlaw after what he sees a failure by the central government to provide a solution to the Indian cause. To make it short, in this astonishingly beautiful place he establishes a one family state not free at all from its own internal struggles beginning with the missus leaving for town on the basis of extremely cold winters, and we can give her that, but probably a bit more out of boredom in an environment too basic for any complex soul.

An unusual plot made quite believable by a skillful director who caught himself up in a few excesses and at least one very childish treatment of the main sub plot resolution, stopped this movie from being almost perfect. I found particularly effective the romantic angle from the very beginning with a shocking accident setting the basis for a quite well achieved notion that death him/herself actually enters the picture to announce a tycoon on his 60 something birthday at the top of his successful career that his days are literally running out. In doing this, Pitt and Hopkins are at their best and both of them manage to treat their character in a manner that leaves no loose ends. The rest of the story surrounding the core idea is full of interesting, romantic, funny and well acted scenes and just left it at that the movie is a 10. Then, unfortunately you feel sorry by having to remove fractions of a point here and there just because for the director enough wasn't enough. Never. As a result, you have endless watery eyes, stares, smiles, more watery eyes, lots of hugs, stuff like that. And to top it all, the big revelation: the coup de grace for a rather annoying character, instead of an obvious and tremendous blow like saying "I think by now you should know that I'm the Death Himself" or anything really right to the point, with the silly cooperation from Hopkins, Joe Black delivers "I.......... aaaaaam an ins....pec.....tooooor of..... the..... Inter.......nal......Re...ve...nue Service". A fatal piece of info, I guess, worse than death in a capitalist environment.

Finally, a bit of a replica of the Beijing fireworks, more and more watery eyes to the point of the audience wondering why aren't we done with the whole thing yet, pleeease!! Still, a good movie. But prepare yourself.

Although I'm fully mystified with whatever system IMDb uses in recommending movies based on only God knows what, sometimes it catches my eye and The Night of the Hunter did exactly that probably because the title itself gave me a tiny chill in the neck and both Robert Mitchum and Shelley Winters are names you can trust when it comes to something evil coming your way. I won't need to clarify that I'm not a qualified movie critic but I feel I should say a couple of things about this one. First and foremost, not being able to discern whether I should praise the director or the cinematographer for the astonishing success of conveying to the screen the extraordinary variety of imagery that makes it impossible to choose a favorite from one end to the other. I believe this is the best quality of this film. Depicting the small town physical, social and psychological atmosphere was just perfect as it was setting up the background and mental works of Mitchum character in less than a couple of minutes. Particularly effective was his insertion in a sort of naive, well meaning and trusting community and the way he engaged in his relationship with Winter in such a natural way that the audience found it hard not to feel comfortable with it while knowing in advance what Mitchum motives were. And even thou the rest of the plot went exactly as it was supposed to be, it never failed to keep the everyone wondering what was going to happen next. From this point of view both the script and the direction where impeccable all the way, as a whole. Of course a few mistakes were made here and there, and no matter how hard to swallow they were you give them all the benefit of the doubt or something else. I mean that you never got entangled with the boy being able to see the shadow of Mitchum reflecting on a second floor wall when the only source of light was a gaslight lamp post and both the post and Michum shades were casted a couple of ft down on the lawn by the picket fence, by an different light source. Also, I'm not convinced at all about the incriminating car going down to rest right in the middle of a very shallow lagoon without a steep slope to allow that to happen. Also, I was very confused with Mrs. Gish character that was somehow depicted as a tough person with harsh manners that you wouldn't be so sure whether she was taking care of homeless kids or actually exploiting them in her business ventures and most of the time feeding them just with apples. I've read a bunch of other confusing or badly explained stuff and I rest my case as for minutiae sake. I'm also convinced that Michelangello's Monalisa has a very disproportionate upper body and everyone believe it's a masterpiece. So, all thing given and taken away, this is a great movie with very good acting, except for Peter Graves while arriving home chased by the police, but fortunately he was hanged early enough. If you like soft horror and great suspense, just go and watch this one. it.

I'm sure Cate Blanchet was thrown in as the bait for anyone motivated by sexy women which is about everyone going to this kind of films and I wonder why they didn't try to make something meaningful out of it. For starts she is at the most a notch or two over Rosa Klebs, the soviet terror woman going after James Bond at the beginning of the last century second half. Other than her acting skills, Cate is a hot blonde with a great body and you would guess someone in the casting team should have mentioned that to the guys in charge. Instead, her character could have been played by Sandra Bernhard and you wouldn't notice in a show so overly charged with visual, sound and, particularly unbelievable stunts effects, and you're left scratching your head why they wanted to waste the extra millions bucks just for the hell of it. Now, for the rest, I's overdue time for Spielberg to stop using the same extraterrestrial dummies with no additional output than the ones he used 40 years ago. As for Indiana himself, well, he is and looks much older than his father did in the temple of doom and it's hard to swallow he can put up any fist fighting with anyone half his size, much less not taking into account the osteoporosis effects in the usual physical abuse he mu7st endure or the instant pneumonia he is bound to catch in this continued waterfall theme park. To me, the final wedding ceremony was a waste of time as it was his use of the trademark whip a few times here and there. I watch in astonishment his hat rolling around in the church floor for no plausible reason, fearing that a new brand new Indiana Jones was going to wear it to bring us up 20 more years of the over exploited character. Fortunately someone thought it better and said to him "C'mon, You pick it up. That's it"

I could easily give Bandits a 10 if it were not because going over the top kills what was an interesting idea and doesn't do much for the threesome premise. I'm just saying that being the object of an excessive hypochondria can make the audience sick. So, at the end it did not work for me the notion that Kate would end up so heart split between the two male characters. The original idea of course was that Joe was all physical, attractive, suave and strong all in one. And Terry was oh so sensitive, smart, intelligent, vulnerable, soft and tender. OK, they were that way to a point and if if would've been that way you can swallow Kate assumption that the two of them can cake a perfect man... for her. So much so that she wasn't able to choose! Then, there is a couple of things to be said about this being wrong: First, Joe demonstrated being very much a twin soul for her being gentle, romantic, sensitive, respectful and tolerant. And he was by no means a no brains male bimbo. Second, it's true that Terry demonstrates vulnerability more that anything else and probably she could fall for it. But it was so silly to have poor Terry being sick from about everything he would run into to the point that it went past the barrier of a suspended belief for a romance between the two. And if that wasn't enough, just take the scene at the bar where just because he had a numb leg the episode was taken to the extreme that the director would make Kate and him dance anyways so that she ended up holding a comatose guy going to the floor which he eventually did. All things said, should the script and the director had taken 2/3 or 3/4 of Terry hypochondria everything would have been fine: Willis couldn't be better or more effective in his role; Cate Blanchett acting was perfect and she has a fantastic sex appeal; and Bob Billy did also very good, and his character's shortcomings weren't never his fault. I thought all the bank robberies, overnight dining and sleeping were absolutely charming, and several characters no matter how brief were really enjoyable. Too bad Terry had a phobia, an allergy or an imaginary illness almost every time he was on screen. Way too much...

Kevin Kline (Mister Hudert) has everything a director needs to make a statue of righteousness out of a human being. He would've been exactly that were it not because he has the very minimum of the human frailties to show he's alive. Take an expensive clothing store mannequin, put a patch on his breast pocket, check a few times his tie knot in the mirror, make him teach and speak non stop about virtue, character and contribution, stay away from women (sort of), have him row senselessly for physical fitness and discipline, and you have perfection in front of your eyes. All is left to do is to spray a coat or two of marble paint, let it dry out and there you are: another Greek or Roman statue, full size. Fortunately, Mister Hudert allows himself a touch of reality here and there when he decides to do something useful for a smart, silly, troubled, annoying student and he goes cheating; he's challenged to bat a ball and he loses his innocence by running away and hide from the consequences of a great hit; he engages himself in an almost invisible love affair with a married woman and when she tells him she is leaving probably for good he doesn't blink even knowing she's the love of his life. More than anything, he's able to recognize and accept where power is and money commands when a Senator pulls him down to ground level and kicks him out of his office. The whole story here is talking and trying to do what he knows is right and complying with the world rules. An interesting movie with a few, not many, original angles whose main contribution would be to let you in an obscenely wealthy people house, manor, theme park, mansion, palace, castle, whatever.