Recreating the 70s ... or at least trying to

Rating: 4/10 (13 October 2008)

From the previews I was expecting a lot of over-acting and I was right.
Still there are a number of positive things about this movie:

For once there is hardly anyone under 30-years-old on the screen which is in sharp contrast to the baby faces that Hollywood inundates its audiences with.

The filming locations were pleasant. No generic La-La Land.

You could easily imagine how funny a movie like this would have been in the 70s with actors like Alan Arkin, Peter Falk, George Segal, Ruth Gordon, Paula Prentiss. Perhaps I'm a little sentimental...

Hats off to Rasche and Simmons playing 2 CIA bureaucrats, they made everything out of very little and they were funnier with the few lines they had than probably all the other actors. Why? Because they understand you don't have to overact every single word!!

People really looked old in this one, those HD cameras are very cruel!
On to the negative points:

The scenes of people getting shot audibly shocked the audience. Comedies only work when deaths occur in "funny" or absurd ways.

I guess this was a comedy even though it could have used at least twice more jokes.

Brad Pitt isn't really all that much of an actor, now that the sweet bird of youth visibly has left him I guess he's lost most of the charm that people must see in him.

Swinton is nasty ... in the movie ... I don't think she did anything to make her part entertaining, let alone funny. But I also don't think she can. She's best in roles of fringe weirdos and emotionless outsiders.

All in all the sad thing about movies today for me is this: They aren't light-hearted anymore. Too much money involved. I found myself constantly guessing what this movie would mean for each actor's career. The movie world is way too uptight. Yes I loved the 60s and 70s when writers, directors, actors mostly seemed to just throw themselves into movies. Everything seems to be calculated to death these days.