This was really lightweight story telling with multiple underwritten characters popping up and disappearing during the marathon length running time. It was hard to acquire sympathy or care about any of them - with the exception of Mollie Burkhart, played by an enchanting Lily Gladstone. You could look at her face all the live long day. But While De and Di ( De Niro and DiCaprio) gave solid enough performances the characters they played were so repugnant their destiny was not something this audience member was particularly invested in. Was this a story worth telling? Yes, just about - but there was really no need to spend 210 minutes telling it. This kind of cinematography belongs in the cinema yes, but you need a story the size of Apocalypse Now to keep people there that long. A small story then, and somehow you expected a whole lot more given the personnel involved.
Reviews
5 Reviews
Robert
(2015)
Dear god almighty
28 August 2023
The script is staggeringly awful in this film. The English actors, almost without exception, are more wooden than your average cricket bat, and they all say 'mad' when they mean 'angry'. Superfluous actors with American accents are bolted onto the final half hour. But these idiosyncrasies shouldn't prevent the film being sold to the American market, if that was the intention, because there will be people stupid enough to buy into this dross. It's film making by numbers as the demonic rag-doll-called-bob wreaks havoc on an unsuspecting family. I wanted them all despatched without delay. They could have wrapped it up in twenty minutes. It's time you never get back. Pass.
Babylon
(I) (2022)
Whirlwind
23 January 2023
The film that polarised the critics. Indeed, there's a 20 minute sub plot towards the end of the189 minutes that should have gone the same way as the French plantation scene in Apocalypse Now. Caligula would have blushed (sic) at the opening sequence. Mary Whitehouse would have had an embolism. You worry that it's depravity for depravities sake. But then it draws you in and picks you up and dumps you at the exit door hours later. It's a whirlwind. A staggering achievement. Margot Robbie - five platinum stars. Brad Pitt - easily now one of my all time favourite actors - five platinum stars. This is not a film you watch at home. You watch it at the cinema. It would be a crime to do otherwise...
Apostle
(2018)
The death of period horror
13 October 2018
This film is desperately awful. Especially surprising since some respected commentators have lavished it with praise. Michael Sheen insists on reminding us he's from Wales. We don't care. I wanted to be overwhelmed with fear, not by his absurdly ham-fisted Welsh accent. To say this film lacks dramatic core is to say the Hindenburg had a rough landing. Derision won't stoop to comment any further. I can't recommended it. Obviously.
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