Director Yann Demange creates a dark film noir, the setting, the look and the cool music are convincing across the board. Matthew McConaughey does an excellent job as an actor. Far from "nice", he plays a single father who illegally sells weapons to keep himself and his two children afloat.
The true story is simply violent, which makes you scratch your head that the FBI of all people would use a 14-year-old as an informant and put him in a dangerous and criminal environment. Especially that the FBI asks him to deal and tells him what to do. (For better "credibility") to then deny all responsibility. OMG...
Where it fails is in creating characters that can captivate the audience the way the great noir antiheroes did.
Unfortunately the movie, failed to ignite, despite the story giving a lot away, we only scratch the surface of the characters and don't delve any deeper. We only get a glimpse of everything: at first the boy has nothing to do with it, then he's straight into it and after a small climax, the end is already here. The protagonist doesn't show enough emotional depth, so that he doesn't inspire and the suspense suffers as a result.
-------------- Conclusion: Quite good - was ok - but could have been realized better - too bad.
The true story is simply violent, which makes you scratch your head that the FBI of all people would use a 14-year-old as an informant and put him in a dangerous and criminal environment. Especially that the FBI asks him to deal and tells him what to do. (For better "credibility") to then deny all responsibility. OMG...
Where it fails is in creating characters that can captivate the audience the way the great noir antiheroes did.
Unfortunately the movie, failed to ignite, despite the story giving a lot away, we only scratch the surface of the characters and don't delve any deeper. We only get a glimpse of everything: at first the boy has nothing to do with it, then he's straight into it and after a small climax, the end is already here. The protagonist doesn't show enough emotional depth, so that he doesn't inspire and the suspense suffers as a result.
-------------- Conclusion: Quite good - was ok - but could have been realized better - too bad.