If it wasn't a true story...

Rating: 5/10 (4 April 2008)

i would really write this off as a dismemberment of all the great gangster classics like Goodfellas, Untouchables en yes even Blow. Some actions in this movie just made me feel i was watching a dejavu of the last 25 years of gangster movies. Don't get me wrong i wasn't bored while watching the movie, but i wasn't surprised either. And yeah, Russel knows how to work with his favorite surrogate director Ridley Scott. Like a good boy he gives the same kind of epic acting he always does by altering his role in a way that it looks fresh again. Further on Ridley borrows Denzel from uncle Tony to shine as the bad guy. The same was done in Training Day and... yes he won the Oscar. This time no nomination. I think because of the material given the movie just tries to hard to be epic. It doesn't feel epic, it's the true story of a bad-ass gangster, it's a biopic.
The supporting cast was just out there to give the two stars more time to shine. Cuba Gooding Jr. completely wasted in a minor role. Armand Assante as a forced Corleone ripoff and the most annoying Josh Brolin. Love the guy in NCFOM and even the Goonies. Seeing Josh in more mainstream movies is cool, but get a new haircut and shave the mustache. Did he had a mustache in the valley of elah? I don't know. Maybe they had separate roles. But the point is, the same clichés are used. Just like Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven the the supporting cast just doesn't do much. It's all about the billed stars. And then the biggest movie cliché used so many times in the history of mainstream pictures, the part where the one star meets the other star in the movie. It was actually cool in Heat, because that was Pacino's and DeNiro's first for real together on screen time. But i remember a certain SF movie called Virtuosity which ruined this moment for me.
I know not everybody shares the same opinion about movies and i know not everybody will share mine. Thats o.k. because i respects everyone else's even if i don't agree.
Before i leave, my never will happen Wishlist:
-Ridley Scott doing a movie with Jack Black -Denzel Washington doing an offbeat Woody Allen Biopic -Russel Crowe returning for Gladiator 2 and Josh Brolin's Mustach getting his own movie deal