What Happened? It started out so well......................

Rating: 2/10 (9 April 2007)

I knew nothing of this film in advance other than it starred Mark Wahlberg. I was surprised how good it started out and set in Philadelphia, too!!! Although the action was violent and graphic, it had an energy and flow that was mesmerizing. This was going to be a good night. This film would be special and as good as the Bourne movies. The characters were developed well, Wahlberg's unique style and quirkiness was coming through, perhaps the next Bruce Willis. I cared about these characters. The quality of the filming was top notch, the angles excellent, often the film was vivid. The story was humming along, an assassination conspiracy slowly developing and unraveling. Then just beyond the half way point the movie crashed. BANG. The plot line made little sense, a tiresome anti-American film. Ho Hum. Over acting and over reaching by Ned Beatty and Danny Glover. Beatty a cartoon character, and Glover so over the top and implausible in any position of authority my head started to throb. What did they do? They ruined a film with such promise and destroyed it with a half baked story line that just appeared to take shots at the government. Where was the press? Want country are we in? The FBI is the Keystone Kops? Death to any intrigue. All believability gone.......a night ruined. A shame too, and almost criminal, because it had such a strong start, such a solid feel to it. To be reduced to the keystone cops with evil men so shallow no one could take them seriously. Oh, there may indeed be evil men in our government, but Glover's character would not have lasted one week. I love Ned Beatty, I hate his performance. If he wants to do a caricature of a powerful clandestine operative, then do a sequel to Hopscotch and make it a comedy. And the final scene was so dreadful, so implausible, that is was the perfect ending to this miserable failure of a film.