Nearly perfect

Rating: 9/10 (30 January 2012)

Every time a director goes for the movie that is a mix of drama, comedy and possibly an action, he accepts the risk of movie becoming boring mediocre and uninteresting. In such case a movie shouldn't be just good but instead should be polished to perfection.
The movie is one of the examples of such movie. Clint Eastwood volunteered to be solely director and the protagonist of the movie. So from a certain point of view he presents how he views the character. And in fact over time as the story goes on we can see a fully developed character which shows his positive and negative traits, but undoubtedly appealing to the viewer's eyes.
The other characters including the secondary ones are not paid that much attention but nevertheless you can always recognize in them a neighbor, a friend or any other person you may know in real life. Still, one particular performance - performance by Bee Vang started to diminish as soon as story went to an end. But that can be considered more as a minor flaw that doesn't spoil the overall impression.
The plot itself and the script for the character dialogs doesn't seem to have any holes or lame excuses for having particular twists. In fact, the story seems to be reasonable and logical and most importantly close to any situation we might be dragged in real world.
The other best thing about the movie is that movie is full of symbolical meanings that start from the title of it. They might have a particular meaning, but nonetheless it is a pleasure to interpret the movie the way you see it.
In fact, the movie nearly reaches the perfection it supposed to achieve. There are several flows, like the one that was mentioned before in terms of acting or probably the unnecessary sound of drums that restates the obvious personality of the protagonist.
Yet, they can easily be ignored since the movie gives a good overall impression. It's worth giving it a go.
9/10