R, 1 hr. 53 min. Directed by: Gregory Hoblit. Release Date: Apr 20, 2007. DVD Release Date: Aug 14, 2007.
****REPOSTED FROM THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH ADDITIONAL EDITS AND COMMENTS****
Smart and tense, this is one of the best sleepy thrillers I've seen in years, and I sit through a TON of these every year. I don't own many of these, but there was no way I was taking a pass on this back when it out on DVD for the first time. This movie really works because of the two leads: Ryan Gosling and the infamous Anthony Hopkins, which is a little bit like the infamous pairing of chocolate and peanut butter. Hopkins is just plain ominous throughout the film. At times, he plays his part in this film so much like Hannibal Lecter that I keep expecting him to jump out and say "hello, Clarice." But then, Hopkins could be playing Santa and I'd probably still think he was a bit scary.
While the action in the movie starts pretty quickly, the movie's a bit sleepy through the middle. There's a lot of passive discussion of exactly what Gosling's character is giving up in his quest to do the right thing. I won't be giving up a lot of what you'll by saying that he's basically giving up every lawyer's dream. The right job, the right pay, and the right little... well never mind. That might be giving away too much. But basically, there's not a whole lot else that happens. You get the spiel about what a prince Gosling in (which seems to be a part of EVERY Gosling movie), you get a bunch of dry legal crap that makes you absolutely hate the American legal system, and you see Hopkins doing that cold, crazy person thing.
I have wondered how plausible a mystery this is. It seems like there were just too many variables considered for the ending to come up so... pat. The first time I watched this movie I wasn't necessarily surprised at how things turned out as how things turned up. But, as the story ravels together, everthing's interesting, and the closing scenes are the perfect combination of apprehension and anticipation for a murder mystery, although you do have to worry that the middle seems swallowed up with tedious content about Gosling's character's ambition. It bothers me when there's no rising action in a story, where you get the setup and then there's a dragging lull, and finally there's just a solution to the problem.
