Wow!
I love watching a trailer and getting excited for a movie with the expectation of one thing and then to watch it and have it not only live up to it's expectations but to break them alltogether.
I have to be careful here as I don't want to give too much away. It's not an "amazing twist" type of scenario but it does all fall into place in such a beautifully written way I don't want to spoil too much. But just in case..
**Spoilers Alert**
Ryan Gosling just went up another few levels for me. He's always been a good actor but it's hard to rave about his amazing performance in the fucking Notebook. But with movies since such as Half Nelson, Fracture and most importantly Drive his dark side has emerged and I think he pulls it off damn well. His bad guy lost soul character Luke in The Pines is as believable as it gets if you overlook some over-zealous eye work from the make-up department.
And every Yin needs a Yang and in this case we have Bradley Cooper who is playing a refreshingly different role from his usual macho touch guy Mr cool routine (which he does do well I admit). He does not have the presence of Gosling but still gives a solid performance as the conflicted cop trying to deal with the events that have passed.
But this is no ordinary bad guy meets good cop and the central transition between the two characters just blew me away. Now many a movie buff much more knowledgeable than I could probably give some examples of movies doing this before.. but I don't know any. After watching so many generic movies of this genre it was a massive breath of fresh air and an act of writing brilliant (you will know what I mean when you watch the movie)
Now, not so unique is when a movie comes full circle. However not many do it as well as this one. As the final peaceful shot remained on screen before the credits rolled I was left with nothing but satisfaction.
It's not even worth going into the technical stuff as it was all top notch. Check out this movie at the cinema and enjoy a brilliant story, some gritty characters and a satisfying ride from start to finish.
8/10
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Definitely one of the best movies ive seen this year to date. At 140+ minutes, this movie is long and quite drawn out, but the character development is brilliant. It has noticeable links to Cianfrance's other work and I even got a bit of latter day Scorcese feel to the movie. Its epic, its brilliant, its a dark, decaying, haunting look at greed, corruption and society. Gosling is great, though not as good as Drive for mine. Cooper is proving himself an accomplished actor outside of his Jock & Rom-Com roles. Its a movie that sucks you in and takes you on a reflective ride. 9/10
ReplyDeleteFinally got around to watching this one and totally agree. This is a really, really good movie and I love the intelligent and well thought out path the movie is designed to take. The central plot and premise is pretty normal and nothing spectacular but done the way these filmmakers did it turns it into something really quite special. I cant really think of another movie that does it like this and thoroughly enjoyed the ride it took me. Really solid acting aswell portraying much deeper characters than many typical American films allow for so all in all excellent flick, I also give it 8/10.
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