Over rated and badly written

Rating: Null/10 (27 October 2003)

I am still in shock. This is hands down the worst written film I have seen with such an outstanding cast. Heavy handed doesn't even begin to describe the direction, but I think Eastwood was just slavishly following the script. The audience was laughing at all the awful lines, and quoting them aloud during the credits. Since many of these lines came at tense moments in the film it killed the mood nearly from the get-go. That Sean Penn and Kevin Bacon were able to create believable characters in the midst of this is an Oscar-worthy feat. Where a single glance between characters or a lingering shot would have done, we instead where treated to insipid "here's what I was thinking just then" style dialog and "recapping the action of the last five minutes" exposition. If I had left the theater repeatedly during the show perhaps I would be singing the praises of this unique scripting innovation, but since I didn't I felt instead like I was watching back to back episodes of a serial that kept welcoming back it's audience. 2/10