Noir Bizarre

Rating: 4/10 (20 August 2000)

Leonardo DiCaprio must have been very desperate for an antihero role to agree to this turkey of a script. No amount of camera magic by Danny Boyle or idyllic locations could save this dreadful story. It spasmodically progresses from implausible, to inconceivable and finally to demented. It is Fantasy Island' meets Apocalypse Now'. The only way to classify it would be Noir Bizarre.
John Hodge and Danny Boyle team up to prove that one success in avant-garde filmmaking (Trainspotting) does not necessarily spill over into future projects, though I must say that Boyle's direction was the only thing that kept this film from being a total disaster. His brilliant camerawork and cinematography helped keep my mind off the peculiar and disjointed content.
As far as the acting goes, this was The Leonardo DiCaprio Show. Though there were additional characters in the film, other than a cameo by Robert Carlyle they were the equivalent of extras that had been elevated to speaking parts. DiCaprio gave a good performance, but his character was so mercurial that it is hard to say he really nailed it. He ran around with his shirt off a lot, so I guess that will keep the teenyboppers happy.
I rated this film a 4/10 on the strength of the cinematography. The story was a 1 or 2 at best and DiCaprio was not enough to elevate it to the level of mediocrity. This is a film for die-hard Leo fans only.