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User's review
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[ATTENTION: This review reveals content of the movie.]
The movie is based on a book that is almost forty years old, so the twists and turns of the plot are not going to be as susprising as they might be if the boo was written last year -- as audiences read books they become familiar with plot strategies so writers have to come up with new ones, and this means that plot stories are less surprising when the story is old because their innovations are cliche's thirty years later. With that in mind, this movie was a major accomplishment. Travolta was magnificent in this role, what I take to be his best internalization of a character to date. The rest of the cast were stellar as well, Turturo, Gandolfini -- some great actors doing a remarkable job. The cinematics were also very original and evocative, capturing the pace of the action through innovative camera work. My only regret is that the Travolta character came up just short of depth. Constructing a character "willing to die" is not reasonably achieved simply by having the character say it -- you need a back story that makes this plausible and that means a life in ruins and a passion for revenge. The amount of money Ryder goes after is not a reasonable amount -- no one needs that amount. Nor does anyone normally need to die so passiontely without any passion. The backstory of a stockbroker in jail is not enough, but if they had spent just a few minutes explaining how Ryder's time in jail was at the same time time necessary to destroy his life outside jail, then there would be enough structure to justify his will to power. A little more material for Travolta to work with and this would be an Academy performance. BTW the audience applauded at the end -- you seldom see that. That's how good the film was.
10/10
13.6.2009 -
com2013@ - age: 13-17
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