msghall Review of The Yakuza

The Yakuza (1974)

Fine performances and tight direction but dialog-heavy script bogs it all down.

[7/10 · 7 February 2020]

This started out as an ace Sydney Pollack flick but after awhile, I found myself drifting off. The acting is wonderful and Pollack's direction displays his usual professionalism but the long conversations and backstory between characters, as fine as they may be on the written page, become tedious and pace-killing on the screen. That an incredibly gratuitous piano and pseudo-jazz score accompanies these moments show that the producers realized that wordy scripts don't always translate to the screen, resulting in the insertion of this loud, annoying music to cover up the ponderous dialog.