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Rating: 3/10 (9 February 2006)

This thing from the first has no tension, if that is what it was going after. The lighting is overdone to ....well the entire effort is...well something is drastically missing. Straighhairn is misused, Clooney just wants to go at everything the wrong way. Done right this film would never have had to have a single title underneath, no preaching about the times, just SHOW the damn stuff. Perhaps sifting through the opening stuff shows the misdirection both literal and figurative of the grand march; what in the world the court jestering of Kent Cigarettes were doing there other than to jump around with obvious pandering to the guests shows the true heart and bones of the story: by if even the deaf dumb and dumb know how the cigarette company hoked the nation into early smoky graves and hardly need to be led around the hand about it. And what was the Liberace bit doing in there. Just another fast swipe at nothing in particular.
In all another hasty stew from Clooney. From here on out I approach all of his managerial efforts with the greatest trepidation.