The movie falls flat...you want it to be more than it is

Rating: 6/10 (5 November 2007)

When you put two of the best actors of the past 25 years on screen together you expect to be riveted. I can actually say that neither had memorable performances. I'd go as far as to say it felt like both were going through the motions here. I saw this with a buddy and we both walked out feeling the same way..entirely underwhelmed. I couldn't identify one scene...NOT ONE....where I sat there and said "That's why Denzel and Crowe are who they are....there is their genius at work".
The movie is awfully slow at times and actually bores you with the amount of details given. The first hour is terribly un-engaging. There is nothing you see here that you haven't seen in Godfather, Goodfellas, New Jack City, Blow, Scarface, etc. It's basically all of those movies put together, but without any memorable scenes.
I'm sure some will talk about the violence scenes where Denzel has his fits of rage. I didn't find those moments overly believable or interesting. And what more is there to the movie in terms of powerful moments besides those? Even if those scenes did do it for you, unlike me, was there any other moments actually compelling where you say "Wow....that was amazing".
I was telling people before I saw this movie that I thought even the trailer seemed pretty flat...I wasn't excited to see this because the trailer did little for me, but I hoped that it was merely a case of not wanting to give away the good stuff. In reality, there wasn't any "good stuff".
I found all of the characters to be either one dimensional or cliché. I'll give the movie a 6 because it's not a "bad" movie by any means. It just falls way short of being what it wanted to be. When you look back at Crowe and Denzel's career, I wouldn't come close to mentioning this movie as one of their finest pieces of work.
Not to try to compare apples to oranges, but the story-telling, the acting, and the tension in Michael Clayton is far superior to this film. I wouldn't consider this for any major Oscar Nominations.