By the book.

Rating: 5/10 (3 February 2019)

'Green Book (2018)' is supposed to be this heart-warming, 'feel-good' type of film but it doesn't really come across that way. You can tell that's its intention, though, and, indeed, it's perhaps the only angle from which the piece is at least somewhat successful. There's an undeniable chemistry between its two leads and their banter provides intermittent entertainment, but I wouldn't say it comes close to being emotionally impactful. Their friendship isn't all that convincing mainly because it develops rather quickly and because neither of them are fully rounded characters. It has some deeper issues, too. Not only is its message incredibly simple, and arguably somewhat retrograde, but it's also impeached in a number of scenes. During these, the flick makes decisions that are questionable at best and incompetent at worst. Of course, there is a rather genuine debate surrounding the validity of crowd-pleasing, consumer-friendly work that tackles serious themes. This piece, however, feels basic in terms of what it tries to achieve and how it goes about doing it. I wouldn't even say it's all that successful at it. Even on face-value, the film feels old-fashioned and oddly paced. Still, I won't disregard its occasional enjoyable moments. It's not awful, by any means. It's just that when you compare it to thematically-similar - and awards-competing - work like 'BlacKkKlansman (2018)', you start to see where it falls short. To be honest, it's not really what we need right now. 5/10