Now hold on a minute....lets use a little common sense here

Rating: 6/10 (30 December 2007)

this is the first review i read after returning from a movie that left everyone in the audience completely mystified and scratching their heads in amazement..: "DO NOT LISTEN TO THE IGNORANT PEOPLE GIVING THIS BAD REVIEWS!!!! They are the people that go to a movie just wanting to see Vin Diesel blow things up, or see Ice Cube babysit. Heaven forbid a movie without a happy ending, one that makes you think about characters and theme....etc,etc" ......in short, the individual who wrote the review i just quoted is clearly reviewing it from a bizarrely different perspective that does NOT address storytelling basics; i mean, HOW,...HOW on this planet does someone come out of that movie talking like this:........"Such a complex film requires deep thinking. While the plot itself isn't too complicated, the characters are multi-dimensional, and the themes are subtle, in a way that some people may not understand." I don't think there is anyone reading this review (of mine) that is going to want to continue reading an unending rant and rave (and i don't wanna write it) so,i am going to get straight to the point. The movie DID have some terrific moments,but when you string a series of moments together for 2 hours and the storyline does not offer up some basic sets of logic (like a more impressive law enforcement effort after a cop is killed) you come to expect in our age of senseless violence, there is still an audience, sitting there (no matter how smart or stupid they are),waiting for some small semblance of "cohesion" in a story...to give a hint that the people IN the story are not soooooooooo far disconnected with all of the things in the world that the audience sees in their everyday life. the bottom line is that this movie has so much stubborn incoherence and "detraction" from any sense of conclusion or closure on many parts of it that there is an inevitable deep sense of storytelling betrayal that has absolutely nothing to do with the argument that it should be recognized for "a complex film requiring deep thinking"...
i mean..........seriously; the movie is just........not.......very ...........good. period. no complex thinking is needed to be able to point out that simple,clear fact. So,when you get past all of your graduate level film courses and analytical techniques, you still have to figure out if a film can rise to the level of storytelling that is capable of doing more than lead a complete roomfull of people to an "oh, my God,what the hell was that" final reaction.
thx...Scott