Reviews

The plot is summarized by others. It's a three set movie, court room, kitchen, and living room. I enjoyed this movie, although from the moment Bogart speaks with the daughter at the home, the ending is telegraphed, but only partly. After the inevitable occurs, the prosecutor shows up at the house and the final part of the movie is an exercise in nihilistic cynicism, proving the point Bogart makes earlier in the movie at the trial. There are three corrupt cynics: Bogart, the boyfriend/gangster, Hull, a newspaper reporter, and the prosecutor. Only Hull redeems himself.

Disappointed in the ending. I expected an ending revolving around Fez turning out to be a prince now ascending to the throne of "my country," (Fez) "wherever that kid is from" (Red), and being forced to marry four beautiful women to cement relationships with neighboring countries. Leaving everybody else in Red's driveway looking at each other.

Fun to watch for a few years but the characters got old and repetitive. Most American tv series that have any success just go on too long.

I found the writing confusing: too many people changed names, and not until episode 16 did I realize Han Moo-gang was not the same name as Han Moo-chan. Maybe it's me, I'm quite old.

Somebody watched a lot of American stuff. Meet Joe Black is acknowledged overtly, but this also lifts from Butterfly Effect and possibly Donnie Darko (maybe the bunny rabbit key chain is an allusion). The police squad also has a guy with Belker (Hill Street Blues) tendencies.

We started this and abandoned it at episode 2, and then, after two years of watching Korean romance dramas (we watch little else but Korean shows now; I think this is our first really dark one), and then came back to it. My advice is to do what we did: watch up to half way thru episode 12, then skip to episode 16. You won't miss anything.

This is the second show we watched with Go Ara which has endings which are meant to please (Do Do Sol Sol La La Sol is the other) but which are cheats. In this one, the Butterfly Effect lift makes you wonder what happened to all the other characters: if this ending, then what about that, and what about that, etc.?

This was evidently done for television. If you've seen other Dean bios, you've seen better. Pretentious and portentous, with largely irrelevant lengthy quotations from Kerouac, anachronistic location shots, and reenactment shots which overlook the fact that Dean had a passenger when he had his fatal accident.

But; totally spoiled by all the comic book villains and the quasi-Tarantino visits to multiple domiciles where hapless people who are all guilty of something, even if only gluttony (and thus deserve to be killed), are gleefully murdered by a group which is supposed to be the "A Team" of killers, but are too busy being quirky or cool to be competent. Mads Mikkleson is excellent in this and his character would have been terrific in something realistic. A lost chance at creating a really good genre piece. Watch for a nod to Leon, The Professional.

Just skip this and watch Charlie Varrick, the Killer Elite, The Outfit, Prime Cut, or any other of those older, now over-looked movies. There has even been some decent stuff more recently. Try The History of Violence or The Town.

I rate this at a 9 only because the show was canceled and they had to rush the ending: Sarah Shahi was away on maternity leave and they brought her back and had to use a body double. She's excellent; Damian Lewis is excellent. Adam Arkin and Donal Logue are excellent. The writing is excellent.

I bought the dvd set a few years ago. I'm on my third trip through this program. I'm sure I'll watch it again.

One pronounced characteristic of Damian Lewis is obviously red hair. It looks like a few episodes in someone decided to have fun with that, so watch for (count ?) the redheads (Donal Logue), or people with reddish hair, or red highlights (Sarah Shahi, more pronounced later on), who are either featured or standing in the background.

Maybe it's my imagination on the redhead issue (or it's confirmation bias), but note that at one point a teenage girl says, looking at another character, "why is his hair dyed that funny color ?" That would be red.

The cast is great; like many K-Dramas you get to know and like the characters. Ara Go is adorable, especially if you like round-faced girls with spectacular smiles. However, the ending(s) spoiled the show in retrospect.

It appears to me the show had an ending, which violated the pact between the watchers up to episode 15 and the makers of the series. Maybe they focus-grouped it, because once committed to that very disappointing ending, they then tacked on a new ending which made absolutely no sense in the context of the presentation of the rest of the episode. It was clumsy, irrational, unrealistic, and dishonest. My wife, however, liked that they changed the ending.