A few things attracted me to go and watch this movie. One, Ben Kingsley; second, knowing that this is a different gangster movie; and third, it is a dark comedy.
The story is about an alcoholic hit man Frank Falenczyk (Ben Kingsley) who is sent (by his gang) to California to attend workshops of Alcoholic Anonymous because he misses out on his jobs of killing people. Frank is also forced to work at a mortuary cleaning and preparing dead people's body for funeral ceremonies. Here he meets Laurel Pearson (Tea Leoni) and both like each other and fall in love. The gangster war eliminates most of his gang and Frank returns to avenge the killings. Laurel helps Frank in his taking revenge, finding love and getting over his alcoholic problems.
The movie tried hard to be different. The movie also tried to present itself as something intelligent and above the rest. And that were its problem. The story was obviously different, the script and treatment were bad. The dialogues though sounding witty and intelligent sounded forced and stupid. It did not bring any smiles on my face. I think the casting also was poorly done. Ben Kingsley, though a great actor was a miscast. The love affair between Ben and Tea did not have any chemistry throughout the movie. I could not understand the motivation of Tea to be so flirtatious with Ben to begin with.
Only two saving grace that I could remember from the movie first, the musical score by Marcelo Zarvos which I think was quite good and second, the 5 minute long gangster shootout scene in the middle of the movie that was glueing.
Director John Dahl who has found his comfort zone in making thrillers; fails to attempt a different genre with same backdrop characters and story.
(Stars 4.5 out of 10)
The story is about an alcoholic hit man Frank Falenczyk (Ben Kingsley) who is sent (by his gang) to California to attend workshops of Alcoholic Anonymous because he misses out on his jobs of killing people. Frank is also forced to work at a mortuary cleaning and preparing dead people's body for funeral ceremonies. Here he meets Laurel Pearson (Tea Leoni) and both like each other and fall in love. The gangster war eliminates most of his gang and Frank returns to avenge the killings. Laurel helps Frank in his taking revenge, finding love and getting over his alcoholic problems.
The movie tried hard to be different. The movie also tried to present itself as something intelligent and above the rest. And that were its problem. The story was obviously different, the script and treatment were bad. The dialogues though sounding witty and intelligent sounded forced and stupid. It did not bring any smiles on my face. I think the casting also was poorly done. Ben Kingsley, though a great actor was a miscast. The love affair between Ben and Tea did not have any chemistry throughout the movie. I could not understand the motivation of Tea to be so flirtatious with Ben to begin with.
Only two saving grace that I could remember from the movie first, the musical score by Marcelo Zarvos which I think was quite good and second, the 5 minute long gangster shootout scene in the middle of the movie that was glueing.
Director John Dahl who has found his comfort zone in making thrillers; fails to attempt a different genre with same backdrop characters and story.
(Stars 4.5 out of 10)