Horribly Over-produced movie

Rating: 1/10 (15 March 2004)

I went into this movie with no expectations. I stuck it out and watched the full 137 torturous minutes. This is a typical Hollywood movie with staged scenes that are over-acted and laden with an overly-dramatic music score that makes for great comedy. The ending was just flat-out ridiculous. A phone call from the wife of (the character played by Kevin Bacon) was telegraphed at the beginning of the movie. And it was painful to wait for it,, and the timing had me and my fellow movie-goers laughing aloud. This movie was just so similar to an episode of Law & Order,, but badly done. My hats off to Tim Robbins for a brilliant performance, but for Sean Penn to win best actor, for some of his lamest work,, makes me think the political impact is the governing factor,, and not the work itself; three major kings of Hollywood have quite the lobbying power on the academy. Bill Murray was robbed, in my opinion.