Grossly Overrated

Rating: 4/10 (30 December 2003)

I have to admit, the build-up for this film was pretty impressive. I believe it made the top ten lists of more critics than any other film. Therefore, I was expecting something incredible. Perhaps I was expecting too much. This film plays like your classic formulaic, book adaptation. Moreover, in many places it seemed like something that would be seen in a made for cable mini-series. Now I do admit that Penn and Robbins were good, they always are. However, so many other performances were just plain average. I love Eastwood, truly do. However, he is just not a great director (Unforgiven being the one exception).
The story starts with three innocent boys and ends with two eyes wide open men. Grief and sadness are everywhere. As is vengeance and remorse. The problem is the paint by the numbers story. It just seems like a step by step murder mystery. This piece of evidence leads to this one and so on. Somewhere, the actions and emotions of the actors are lost among the framework of the story. The performances of the leads get it 7 out of 10. However, "Lost in Translation" would get by vote for best picture, easy.