so pretentious and derivative it should be funny

Rating: 1/10 (18 July 2008)

The pretentiousness kicks off with the title - criminals are not assassinated. All the affectation of a Terence Malick's "Days of Heaven" w/o the art - interesting b/c Sam Shepard was in both "Days of Heaven" and this clunker. Horrible acting; everyone except Shepard is trying to act like they are in an art film - arch without any presence. Shiitake mushrooms have more presence and are considerably less annoying than Casey Affleck. The cinematography is anti-Malick - instead of sweeping, beautifully exposed wide angles there are mid ranges with vignetting added to give it some artsy look and to make up for the bad exposure of many of the shots. It doesn't work. I can't remember when I saw a more pretentious piece of boring film.
What happens when you give a bad film student with a Terence Malick obsession a bunch of money? This "film"