Viewed in
2010
Formats
HD TV
Premise
Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke star was two brothers who decide to rob a jewelry store, to tragic results.
Liked
The acting.
Hated
The unnecessary time jumps.
Thoughts
The acting was quite superb, especially the four main players, including Hawke, Hoffman, Albert Finney as their father. Not only did Marisa Tomei put in a strong performance, she put on an eye-poppingly awesome sex scene at the start.
Unfortunately, I found the entire movie to be quite dull. The main culprit was the superfluous, fragmented flashbacks and time-jumping, exacerbated by the amateurishly/hilariously bad transitions to those jumps. I was flabbergasted that it was directed by the great Sidney Lumet. It was a heart-breaking story, but once the tragedy was revealed in the first act (and implied by the trailers), it simply became a string of sad and sadder family strife. Nothing was gained by non-linear story-telling, and instead caused me to not care what happens next to these star-crossed characters.
Bottom line, the performances very well-done, but the story-telling killed the mood. Perhaps if you never saw any trailers, you might have enjoyed it better than I.
What I would change
Told the story linearly.
