nonsensical, weak rehash of past gangster flicks

Rating: 2/10 (31 October 2007)

I caught a screening of this, and I am completely shocked that this thing has an 8.8 on IMDb. Not a single element of this film was even remotely original, the "story" was scatter brained and played out like a bad game of gangster edition madlibs, and the characters were harder to care for than an already dead house plant. It's a perfect example of how, sometimes, a movie's parts can be much better than it's whole. Watched in parts, the film is spectacular, but when those parts are put together, you're left confused as to why anybody in this entire movie does anything they do. The characters are given cheap depth, such as being completely evil 99% of the time, but then, for one out of place scene, they're nice to their mother. Directed by Ridley Scott and starring Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington, this was a very pretty but weak film with an ensemble team of the most overrated players in Hollywood.