60 minutes of greatness, the rest average

Rating: Null/10 (24 July 2010)

For exactly one hour this film was a thrill to watch: A good story, starting with a suckerpunch, good acting, intelligent dialogue, nice surprises, fantastic cinematography. What a ride, I was enjoying it immensely. A ten star rating for the first 60 minutes.
Then, all steam gone from one minute to the next. From then on, it turned into an average thriller with predictable turns of action, the story got washy, the characters lost their brilliance, I was not bored but a bit annoyed.
From the clumsy build-up of the assistant's approaching demise - which I saw ten miles coming, come on! - to the Hollywood ending, it might not have been that bad if the first 2/3 hadn't been so fantastic. Viola Davis as the mayor the only light in the last third (but she shines brightly as usual!:-)).
I guess the writer ran out of an idea how to end this intelligently, with all the impact expected after the great start...
He probably made a mistake of judgement: We, the audience, root for the avenger. What did you expect after showing us what he suffered right at the start?! I was having fun watching him succeed, I wanted him to, looking forward to more twists. Turns out he's just a bad guy who's a tech whiz...duh!
"This broken thing" is for real, but at the end of the film, what moral is the audience left with? The DA of Philly won't make any more deals with murderers. Oh. Great. Hello?
Still, the first hour is memorable. Maybe someone will finish the idea one day in a satisfactory way - and I don't even know what that might be, just that this wasn't it.