Harold Pinter would be proud.

Rating: Null/10 (29 September 2011)

And for those of you who have no idea who Harold Pinter was, he was a Nobel prize winning British dramatist and screenwriter most famous for the interminable pauses in his stage plays, during which the audience would wonder if the actors had actually died onstage. I bring this up due to the interminable silences between characters in the first half of this movie during which you want to reach out and slap them awake. (Let's forget about subtext and just get some communication going here.) Yes, a couple of great car chases, particularly the extended opening sequence, and enough blood and gore to make any modern moviegoer happy. Heads blown apart, a head kicked to a pulp, a fork in the eye and a knife in the Adam's apple. (Are you salivating yet?) A half decent story slowed to a snail's pace in the first half by the director, who thankfully picks up the pace later on. (Oh, and I'll also bring up the name Antonioni. Ever heard of him? A stylish Italian film director famous in the sixties whose career went down the toilet when the audiences got sick of the -- interminable silences between characters.) Is this movie worth the price of admission? Yes. Are the actors watchable? Yes, although Ryan is no Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti Western, just a nice guy pretending to be bad. One thing this movie does have is a FABULOUS music score that pounds along during the action sequences. If only the first half of this movie didn't have all those mind-numbing silences!!!