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A very interesting two plus hours. A decent character study, but...in one of my screenwriting classes, I was told that if I had secondary characters that were more interesting than my lead character, then my script would be in trouble. Sadly, I felt this was the case here. I really didn't care for Monty at all. I guess the point of the pre-credit opening was to establish him as a caring dude, but as the story went on, I could care less. I mean, I understood the ideas about friendship, loyalty, growing up and what not, but ultimately I just didn't care about Monty's fate. It's always a tricky thing for writers to try to pull off: the "humane" drug dealer, since going in we all have our own preconceived notions of what drug dealers do to us (all of us). These notions may have colored my view towards Monty, but I feel like it's Benioff's and Spike's and Ed Norton's responsibility to make me care about this guy, and I didn't think they went far enough with it.
Don't get it twisted, Norton's up to his usual good acting tricks, but to me, the standout performance was Barry Pepper. Sure, his role was the showiest of the three males, but he got his lines off perfectly. And he had the line of the movie, which I won't give away except to say that I'm sure Spike was the one who came up with it (and yes, I know David Benioff wrote the script). And to think Entertainment Weekly's Shaw Report said he was "out." Fuck Jessica Shaw!
The female characters were underdeveloped. As sexy as she was in that silver dress (and later in sweats), Rosario didn't have much to do except dance in the club and look forlorn at Ed Norton. Anna Paquin's character was interesting, and really played off Phillip Seymour Hoffman very well. These two would be great...if they were given their own movie. It felt like they fell into the wrong movie. With that being said, however, they felt more like a believable couple than Norton and Rosario did. I was more interested in their dynamic. I wanted to see/know what became of their relationship. I think that's because the scene in the classroom and the one after it did such a good job of establishing these people and *making me care* about what happened to them.
Oh, and the main DEA cat had my dyin': "Sheeeeeeit."
Brian Cox didn't really get to shine until the last 25 minutes or so. Speaking of which, regarding that last half hour or so, I can honestly say that that was the only time in the movie when I truly made an emotional connection with Monty. The scene with Pepper and Hoffman, and the later scene/montage with Brian Cox narrating were both powerful sequences. But that was about it.
Technical stuff. As usual, Terence Blanchard proves that he should be getting more scoring work out here in Hollywood. Great shit. I almost bought the score. I was surprised to see Spike working with a new DP on this one, as opposed to Malik Sayeed. Not surprisingly, there was less of a reliance on film effects (I'm referring to the film bleaching processed used to death in previous films, NOT the trademark Spike Lee "floating" dolly shots. And yes, I know, we saw some bleaching in this film as well).
This is a total and complete New York movie. If you think of it on that level, it's great. While I enjoyed it, and would recommend it, I thought the writing and acting didn't go far enough with the characters to make me care about all of them, especially the lead, which is a problem. But hey, let's at least give it up for the big man, Tony Siragusa! ______________________________________________ "A Friend in Need is a PEST." -Bobby "The Brain" Heenan
"...but I feel GOOD! But I feel HIGH!" -Groove Armada
_____________________________________________________________ delete if there is a post, i couldn't find it
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