Spoilers herein.
I do not expect Hollywood to ever bowl me over; I depend on other film communities for that. The Hollywood machine is so preoccupied with avoiding risk via lowbrow entertainment that we usually end up without intelligence or cleverness in our lives with them. But there are a few figures connected to that machine that I can rely on. DePalma for an intelligent eye; Ridley Scott for managing time; Soderbergh for framing and so on. But the influence of these folks rarely extends to the project as a whole.
That's not the case with Danny DeVito. Forget his acting; as a director or producer you can always count on his intellect and sometimes we also get a coherent film out of the deal. In other words, we get something that conforms to the Hollywood principles (fun, exploits actors in the best way, solid production values) and at the same time has enough intellectual depth to allow some sun to shine in through cosmic windows.
This film is one of those. It is not on my `must see' list, but it is one of the best Hollywood productions of the last decade.
The setup is like `The Player,' a film about the writing of itself, about how life copies film and vice versa. Along the way, it subverts gangster pictures in a slightly different way than `Pulp Fiction' of the previous year - also produced (and significantly influenced) by DeVito. I really appreciate `folding' like this, and make a study of them. I already have a database of nearly a thousand examples of folding. It is a fascinating phenomenon, but rarely is it sheer fun.
This one is folded and fun.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 4: Worth watching.
I do not expect Hollywood to ever bowl me over; I depend on other film communities for that. The Hollywood machine is so preoccupied with avoiding risk via lowbrow entertainment that we usually end up without intelligence or cleverness in our lives with them. But there are a few figures connected to that machine that I can rely on. DePalma for an intelligent eye; Ridley Scott for managing time; Soderbergh for framing and so on. But the influence of these folks rarely extends to the project as a whole.
That's not the case with Danny DeVito. Forget his acting; as a director or producer you can always count on his intellect and sometimes we also get a coherent film out of the deal. In other words, we get something that conforms to the Hollywood principles (fun, exploits actors in the best way, solid production values) and at the same time has enough intellectual depth to allow some sun to shine in through cosmic windows.
This film is one of those. It is not on my `must see' list, but it is one of the best Hollywood productions of the last decade.
The setup is like `The Player,' a film about the writing of itself, about how life copies film and vice versa. Along the way, it subverts gangster pictures in a slightly different way than `Pulp Fiction' of the previous year - also produced (and significantly influenced) by DeVito. I really appreciate `folding' like this, and make a study of them. I already have a database of nearly a thousand examples of folding. It is a fascinating phenomenon, but rarely is it sheer fun.
This one is folded and fun.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 4: Worth watching.