A promising start which unfortunately descends into pretentious nothingness.

Rating: 5/10 (4 January 2014)

A great cast, decent setting, excellent story material and a somewhat promising narrative should combine to make a good movie, no?
In parts, the above rings true, however it is all too obvious that after a while, the movie becomes too much of a spotlight for each actor to have their 'moment' rather than carrying on with what starts as an interesting story.
The film turned out to be too much of a comedy for me. The trailers portrayed it slightly differently than that and I went in expecting quite a hard-hitting film based on the thin line between the risk/reward nature of the criminality the story is based upon. Instead, it is soft at best and descends into one-liner territory after the first half.
There is far too much focus on side-boob and not enough on narrative and what starts as an intriguing insight into a fictional story within a larger, truer scandal, unfortunately descends into pretentious nonsense much more interested in allowing the cast to have their head-up-their- own-arse moments rather than fleshing out a story that begins all too well.
Cameo performances from huge actors are only really successful if they either aren't in it long enough to make you want to see more of them (Hugh Jackman in X-Men: First Class for example) but drawing out a potential side plot with a huge actor to then have it fizzle away into nothing is poor. The film was all-but ruined for me the moment I realised the actor in question was not sticking around after his introduction was too involved for me to think his side plot wouldn't be explored.
Jennifer Lawrence shines in a movie that she was clearly miscast in, but I can't think of any reason to give this a second watch.
Disappointing.