Depressive art with bullets and violence

Rating: 9/10 (29 October 2008)

Alright, I have to admit, I'm a fan of anything in the film-noir genre. But this simply blew me away.
At first, the story seemed a little hard to grasp since it started off nowhere, flew to another personage, gave me a sneak peak of yet another, and then went back along the road of person number two. By the end of the film, everything had become clear, and my only regret left here is that the characters of the three different stories never truly meet.
The camera, the acting, the gray blur... It was all exactly where it had to be. As the story truly kicks off with the beginning of Marv's story, you immediately get violently pulled into the movie. Marv might remind you of the incredible Hulk at times, but he's far from it. You hear him voice-over his own story as you see blackened glimpses of his wrecked face. When the story flips to Dwight, it's the ladies' turn to relieve their anger. The women shown in his part of the movie know how to row their own boat, and this is gruesomely but beautifully demonstrated while Dwight comments on his own story. Last but not least, Hartigan's story rolls over you like a tidal wave, as he fills you in on what happened to him since we last left him at the very beginning of the movie.
This is a movie in exactly the way that I like it; cold dead reality with a whiff of fantasy, filmed by a depressive camera while a man with nothing to lose adds in the fitting one-liners. I can't say anything for people who have read the book, but I can say this; If you liked the Max Payne games, go watch this. If you like a movie showing the slum-like sides of life, go watch this. And most of all; if you like art consisting of bullets, violence and depression, go watch this.