Reviews

I found this movie pretty entertaining. The plot is in the form of what has today become a pretty cookie cutter formula. A house haunted by a sad or angry spirit wanting revenge, avenge or justice. The plot is not quite esoteric or nuanced enough for my tastes, and it kind of drags a bit from the middle and out, transforming itself from a claustrophobic and intense exorcist like nightmare to more of a mystery thriller with loads of dialogue and daylight scenes.

Fortunately the cinematography is beautiful, slow, wide and open. The 1800'th century aristocratic victorian interior decor, coupled with the bright and open scenes from the inner city of New York and Washington (?) creates a nice contrast between the darker scenes inside the house which becomes a bit carnival-like in the long run.

Another positive factor is the way the movie takes itself seriously, largely fueled by the cast that seems less Hollywood and morel like stage actors.

Right from the start Costner annoyed me in the Role as Elliot. He seemed like a bland and boring good cop, and never really came through - what a boring little family he had.

The whole build up with the "lets gather a bunch of of misfits and throw them into action" was beautiful and entertaining for five minutes, then it just became obviously manipulative from a plot perspective.

Many of the scenes seemed weirdly empty, like something was wrong in the world building process. Not enough smoke, not enough rain and dirt, not enough people! Everything was very set-piecy which fit the overly clichéd cinematography though.

One of the things that annoyed me the most was the "folksy" - "good old timey whimey" lets a have big ol' shootout with music so overly dramatic and hollywoodesque your ears almost fell of. Also you grew increasingly tired with the weird mix of violence, and fun-for-the-whole-family atmosphere. Which leads me to the main problem: While Scarface and Carlitos Way had some kind of nihilistic and grotesque humor in the depiction of the coke era, and made no effort to make anything PG13, this movie didn't really seem sure of what it was doing. Everything seemed to clean cut, to polished and without nerve and humor. Which weirdly enough made this movie come of as being lot more sociopathic in its utilisation of violence. Because when violence is used in tandem with the Hollywood clichés the whole thing reeks of money grubbing producers and not willful directors.

Give me more nuance, more grit, or at least some warmth from unexpected characters. Scorcese did it better. Palmas other movies did it better.

This movies is like a life flashing before your eyes in the last moments before death. Nostalgia, longing, regrets, people, beauty, time and poetry are words that comes to your mind while watching.

Very much like the liminal state between being awake and dreaming.

The movie is woven like a cosmic gobelin scaling the globe, the human timeframe, needling through centuries and contrasting the personal life, with the life of a chaotic world, nature and machinery, near and far.

I mostly remember this movie for the almost gnostic poetic montages about the archetypal human condition cutting through all of time and space. The sacred is in anything and Tarkovsky can actually show you that.

Carlitos way is about inner city people trying to make it in a cruel a ruthless competition for money and power. Following both a street thug and a morally bankrupt star lawyer the movie portrays human beings from different social classes each trying their best to make against the backdrop of the coke and crime ridden urban environment of the 70's USA.

Al Pacino gives Carlitos warmth. He stands out as a sympathetic guy trapped in a game of honor codes and eye-for-eye mentality, while Sean Penn shines as a the highly educated and cynical chess player, while also coming off as being ridiculous and pathetic. Sean Penns dance moves are hilarious.

This movie is remembered for the tension between the sympathetic yet slightly grotesque portrayal of 70/80 coke parties and crime fests, like movies from Scorcese. Everyone seems locked in to their destiny and despite trying to skew it ends up on their chosen path. Just like the movies title alludes to.

Like Scarface the movie features some of the best and most ridiculous cocaine party scenes, complete with old business men dancing and prancing with sweaty foreheads and near heart attack looking moves.

Recommendable.

A movie about a special couple of brothers, who transformed themselves from geeky children interested in medical sciences to forty something gynecologists at the top of their field. They have a special emotional bond that makes them play with their identities, without other people being aware of it, because they look exactly the same. Different, but completely dependable, the sex games they play are bound to spiral out of control, and so they do, completely changing the look of both the brothers and their environments. The aesthetics of the movie are extremely thoroughly done, and you wont find a scene that doesn't fit the cold upper class 80's corporate theme. Marble covered walls, steel elevators, tall ornamented wooden doors and wide open spaces with a 80's futuristic and almost dysphoric noir feel going on. Doctors are dressed like members of secret cults, and the brothers lives and the work they do play out like elaborate rituals. And as the movie progresses their super organized apartment becomes a messy wasteland mirroring the state they are in. This is a multilayered movie that definitely will reveal itself even more on a second watching, even though psychological involvement is sometimes a little hard, maybe because of the movies lack of warmth.