Reviews

Everyone else has already provided the details of what makes this film beautiful and intense.

My only fault with it is why didn't the Captain get Dersu some glasses instead of or in combination with the new rifle.

There is only a minimal amount of action in this movie and it was reasonably done. The movie focuses instead on the characters in particular Buckey and Simone - the gangster and the undercover police detective put in place to take him down. Both main actors gave an okay performance, nothing stellar, but nothing over bad; the problem lies with the script which tries to paint Buckey as a Robin Hood type character but in hopelessly cliched terms. The rest of the cast are all incredibly "hammy" - particularly the Sargent - "sarge" is all ham. I liked the Jamaican patois but there was not enough depth to it - go search a few Bob Marley interviews and you'll see what I mean. Overall the movie failed to satisfy due to a poor script, hammy acting and a thin plot.

Firstly, "Homing Pigeon's" are called, 'Homing' for a reason; because they fly home i.e. one-way. But somehow our hero has the Fedex of pigeons, give them an address and off they go. Dumb. Secondly, a bunch of reviewers have remarked on how cool FW is... right... talking to little girls in the park and then offering to buy her an ice-cream, cringe city - just came off like a pedophile. Third swirling your gun around does not a Samurai make (and looks really stupid). Other bad things... Swapping license plates with another car - dude, choose the same color plates it might take a bit longer for the owner of the other car to realize. ... On a focused Samurai mission... stop for a little bird-watching at a crucial moment and take out a couple of people hunting a bear. Good points for promoting environmental awareness perhaps but not at the expense of a movie's theme. Semaphore... forgot to mention that earlier, apparently the whole flock of pigeons were previously in the navy... were they learned semaphore. Good things - not many... the Italian mafia were about as cliched as you get... but the music was okay. I get the artsy references and so on but you know wrap in something that actually works. I got the movie because one of the reviews called it, "an amazingly good character driven film". Just what characters they're talking about I have no idea... except maybe the black dog... he played a good part.

It gets two stars for the camera work of a modern Bangkok at night - and that's it - the sole redeeming feature of this otherwise featureless movie.

I read, "Oh but it's art", or, "Those who love cinema will love this..." - hogwash; I love cinema, and art and this movie is neither. From small details (it costs a little more than a few thousand baht to put a contract hit on a senior cop in Bangkok), to hammy acting; even "silent" Ryan hammed it up, albeit silently; to a boring set of thinly plotted events cast in a dreamlike way so that the producers could waffle on about the "art" movie they made.

Don't waste your time.

The credibility of the set up for the last third of the movie was very well done. From the beginning where hope was established, to the steady way in which 'with patience and saliva the elephant screws the ant', was well-paced, and believable; the bonding of the "little" people - the other 99% was a nice touch - mainly because it reflected real life.

The climax too had its moments. A nice, non-too-subtle, homage to 'Taxi Driver' with DeNiro, (in this movie our protagonist is practicing his fast draw in a mirror and the next scene opens with a taxi door - the word "Taxi" there for us all to get the reference).

For me the ending was too contrived ymmv. I appreciated the "twist" but came away feeling it was less than plausible. Any Wall Street types I know would be on their knees begging forgiveness and offering up their first born rather than having a rant about how the rich will always screw the poor and that's the American Way.

Likewise the fact that his buddies were there at the end. I get that they were NY Cops, but NY cops have precincts and they were way out of theirs.

All in all a solid movie that isn't a waste of your time. Poignant movements delivered well and if you can suspend your belief for a little while the ending could be satisfying for you.

Awful is right. I mark this as having spoilers because I'm going to tell you about the whole movie, however I will not give anything away...

A bit of father daughter BS. Then a massive totally stupid car chase, then a bit of totally "ham" acting; then father son BS; more father son BS, a fight, a shootout; bit more father son BS. The Big "surprise" (yeah, really); then another shootout, the a family reunion BS.

Yawn.

Come on Bruce - go do a gritty Western or something; this is beneath you (and that's saying a lot).