Deep as an episode of Law & Order

Rating: Null/10 (4 March 2004)

This film isn't moving, its just a regurgitation of old feelings. The acting, writing and directing is all on par with any TV drama. The accents sound like Long Island (Sean Penn comes closest with a dialect that sounds Eastern Connecticut, but it's still a little off). The acting is fine given the material, but the characters are too flat to create fully rounded performances. It's a decent pot-boiler, but hardly a work of art.
I wish that critics recognized that great acting is not about crying, histrionics and prosthetics. I found Penn's performance utterly forgettable and repetitive. It started off and ended on the same note, and everything in between was sleepy, drunk, crying, drunk, sleepy, crying, crying, drunk, violent, sleepy, drunk ... hmm, maybe I forgot p***y.