A hot mess

Rating: 6/10 (31 August 2016)

This movie is about a very successful Florida lawyer who hasn't lost a case since he started, played by Keanu Reeves, when he gets the chance to go work for a big lawyer company
Going into this movie, I expected something very different from what I got. It wasn't quite clear what the movie was going for. The scenes feel very rushed and most of them don't really serve a purpose. The first and the second part also felt very separate from each other. The first part felt more like a biopic, while the second part got glimpses of a psychological thriller. Only until the very (second to) last scene the movie revealed it's underlying message, but by then for me it was already ruined.
The performance felt a bit choppy for me, especially Keanu Reeves got on my nerves with some serious overacting. He also had something really irritating about his voice. Also Charlize Theron's character was just plain stupid, she had no personality whatsoever and you don't really care for their relationship. (It even annoys you a bit at times) The one bright spot in this whole movie is the performance of Al Pacino though. Every minute he's on screen he demands all the attention, and while you get from the beginning that he's not really very reliable, you do however enjoy every scene he's in because it really looks like Pacino is just having a fun time. Pacino has some great monologue moments in this moments, and all the credit goes to him because he didn't really have so much to work with, but somehow he made it click.
That's however the only really enjoyable part in the movie, because what's left is really just a hot mess. The editing feels very choppy and rushed, like already mention the dialogue is very dull and you don't really know where this movie is going or what it wants to be. It is blunt and too subtle at the same time. Sometime the movie wants to make something clear so bad that it just looks absolutely ridiculous while at other times you don't really get what the movie is trying to tell you. Having said that however, I do think if you see this movie twice, you Will get a bit more satisfaction over it if you do decide to concentrate on the underlying tone. It is pitiful however that you only can get grasp of the tone of the movie at the end of the movie. (The last monologue of Pacino is undoubtedly the thing that elevates this movie) I don't think anyone would really care to see it a second time to be honest, because you would have lost you attention for the movie long before the first watching even ends 5,5/10 verdict: A hot mess