But within ten minutes or so I found myself so annoyed I actually started taking notes that were nitpicking on a CinemaSins level of "dude, you do realize this IS what the movie is?" navel gazing. Like I said above, I do think the stars do what they can for it, but upon rewatch it was truly the editing as much as anything that never gives this thing a chance.


It's like if somebody's Make-A-Wish dream was to pace Se7en like A Walk to Remember. At its most consistent shittiness it feels like it prefers the plot to the performances, like Denzel and Retta in the morgue. Everything about it feels like each shot was taken from sometime before or after they found it. Between Denzel's coming to prefer theater acting and Retta basically only having the all-day adlibbing of Parks & Rec to tap into their rapport feels so imaginary, and this isn't some Lynchian/Garlandesque movie where that's the point.


In other words, two actors I like do a scene propelling the plot of a type of movie I'm predisposed to like and if it weren't for the set designer, the camera quality and/or Denzel's inability to suck...like you said, it's a TNT feature (made for TNT, never screened). It'd be one thing if the movie felt like it was having fun balancing the screenplay against the cast, but it's not!


Shrug off all the malfeasance of the third act, let the first act indulge in its "old Black cop failed when it mattered most but he's still Got the Touch, Got the Power (s/o Stan Bush) and unless he buys what the latest Idiot Savant White Dummy is framing as redemption he'll never know peace" because it arguably employs race more accidentally than the early 90s movies that buried this one, but the way this movie meanders into its second act...man...


First of all, even though Denzel (mostly) resists the temptation he's suddenly storming around town in one size too NBA Draft suits just like Creasy. Shortly after, him and Mr. Robot are housing pancakes while hop-scotching each others' questions "subtly" (ie. extremely) significant to both the plot and their mutually unique desire to be movie characters who'd sell their soul in order to make their target less of a two-legged MacGuffin that'll never solve their true trauma? As soon as this movie shamelessly reminds you of a movie where an aggrieved Denzel drives the plot rather than succumbs to it, he's immediately wrangled and forced back into a part, no offense, Colman Domingo or the Ubuntu President of the Allstate of Commerce could've played (sorry, Mr. Haysbert).


I'll admit that I hate I ranted like this about this movie, because like I said above, "like I said above" I do enjoy the performances quite a bit. I know it's fun to shit on Leto but I think he found a real creep here, and without any insight into whether Malek saw Gyllenhaal's performance in Prisoners I think he dodges most of the script's attempts to mold a queer mirror image of Pitts' Mills out of him. Though if I weren't allowed any caveats I'd say this is one of those roles where some level of the process, from casting all the way to cinematography, let alone script or direction, exposed an actor pretty uncomfortably. Rami Malek is attention grabbing by virtue of his presence, but in really distracting and suck ass ways.


But more than anything, while I don't have a lot of these sorts of movies in my pocket - I'll name Hard Rain and Justice League for sake of reference - I'm so fascinated by your insistence that this movie is remotely "OK". I think my history on PTP's made it clear I'm not the most predictable dude either - talking about movies would be dull as hell if we couldn't confuse ourselves every so often, let alone each other - and yet...


THIS. MOVIE. IS. ASS. BUD.

~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz