Lame, artificial, condescending

Rating: 4/10 (18 May 2007)

As with several other recent "acclaimed" movies that I've seen (e.g. Casino Royale, Borat) this movie was disappointing. No, more than disappointing, it was just aggravating. The little polemics that Zwick inserted throughout the movie were obvious and lame, which rendered the dialog plain embarrassing, and which caused the actors to look blatantly embarrassed, with good reason.
Moreover, the whole black man/white man partnership has been rendered well in many movies, but in this, I found the "partnership" was condescending and patronizing towards the black side of the coin. It's not something unique to white film makers - some of Spike Lee's movies, for instance, are equally patronizing to other races - but it's still cringe-worthy, no matter where it comes from.
The ending was enormously predictable, although even I didn't predict that it would be so drawn out and, once again, lame. How did Di Caprio get acting nominations for this? He made one truly great movie (What's Eating Gilbert Grape) and has been struggling ever since.