I've been watching movies for a long time, and I should have trusted my instincts on this movie. 10 minutes in, the desire to turn it off kicked in, but I ignored it. "It's going to get better," I told myself.
It didn't.
The movie rambled on, jumping from time to time with no rhyme or reason. It couldn't seem to make any choice on whether it wanted to be a true crime thriller (it didn't hit that mark), a heist flick (another miss), or a con flick, (and a third miss). I've seen people saying it is a great character study, but it felt so incredibly one dimensional that it makes me question those people's character.
It was slow, and plodding, and just didn't make any effort to connect the audience to anyone in the movie whatsoever. His big crime is an armored truck robbery which isn't even mentioned until halfway through the movie. It is called "American Murderer" and didn't show any murder until the last 20 minutes of the movie. It is implied he killed his dad at one point, but other than that, just the armored car driver.
I understand it is based on a true to life story, and that is what happened... By maybe just call it "American Douchenozzle" then. Even if the dude was constantly jumping from con to con, maybe show us more about that if you want to work that up. Is he a hardened criminal, lets see that... He seems to have been a garden variety party boy con-man, which could have been a really interesting story, but they just couldn't pick a thing to focus on.
It's not the actors fault I don't think. They all worked with what they had. The director wasn't working to pull the deepest performances out of them, and the writing was sub par.
I would pass on this one if I could. It murdered 2 hours of my life.
It didn't.
The movie rambled on, jumping from time to time with no rhyme or reason. It couldn't seem to make any choice on whether it wanted to be a true crime thriller (it didn't hit that mark), a heist flick (another miss), or a con flick, (and a third miss). I've seen people saying it is a great character study, but it felt so incredibly one dimensional that it makes me question those people's character.
It was slow, and plodding, and just didn't make any effort to connect the audience to anyone in the movie whatsoever. His big crime is an armored truck robbery which isn't even mentioned until halfway through the movie. It is called "American Murderer" and didn't show any murder until the last 20 minutes of the movie. It is implied he killed his dad at one point, but other than that, just the armored car driver.
I understand it is based on a true to life story, and that is what happened... By maybe just call it "American Douchenozzle" then. Even if the dude was constantly jumping from con to con, maybe show us more about that if you want to work that up. Is he a hardened criminal, lets see that... He seems to have been a garden variety party boy con-man, which could have been a really interesting story, but they just couldn't pick a thing to focus on.
It's not the actors fault I don't think. They all worked with what they had. The director wasn't working to pull the deepest performances out of them, and the writing was sub par.
I would pass on this one if I could. It murdered 2 hours of my life.