a film where everything is real and nothing can be foreseen

Rating: 9/10 (18 October 2004)

It' a very well made movie, a sort of thriller with psychological implications (but not a psycho-thriller!). Although the principal characters are two, and we all already read or heard they acted both very well, the film seems to be a sort of choral movie, as it gives the right importance to every character. Just think about Javier Bardem acting in the role of the criminal who ordered the homicides, or Mark Ruffalo acting as the witty detective who is the only one to understand the situation. I didn't like very much the use of the steady-cam intermingled with more conventional filming. But it's only a personal point of view. Actually, it is pregnant of meaning. The changes between this kind of "real-tv" and conventional filming, as sudden and rapid as the changes between air filming and close shots, represent the intention to depict the characters from many different points of view: as being part of a big city, as little points over the face of the world, as main characters of an action scene, or in a more intimate way, as they talk, for example, into the taxi, or in the two nightclubs. A very good device is the startling homicide of the jazz player, exactly because the scene presents us a Vincent which resembles most the calm Vincent in the Taxi, who is a good listener, aware of the "facts of life". That's to say, although seen from different points of view, there is only one Vincent, and the Vincent in the taxi isn't less cruel than the killer. Another very interesting device is the continuous critic to "common sense" (in the worst exception). Anytime one of the two risks to sliver into banality (as in action as well as in his talkins), the other character destroys the impression by saying something startling.
The result is a very realistic film, where everything is possible and nothing can be really foreseen.