Stylish crime drama with little content

Rating: 6/10 (6 February 2006)

[**Major spoilers**] This movie began on a sour note in the opening scene with a man on an upper floor pissing down onto a ribbon of flaming gasoline on a lower floor to put it out. Right off we know that there is going to have to be some major suspension of disbelief.
The story line is not nearly as complicated as it is made out to be. Within the context of this movie, maybe that was a goal. I never did figure out what the deal was with the image of the rope heading into a rat's nest of junk that was shown several times.
A real problem for me was that the two main thugs in this were not at all threatening. The final plot twist only furthered this dissonance - it was kind of like finding out that behind the mask of Darth Vader we find Pee-wee Herman. And I felt manipulated by the final twist (that was in fact somewhat anticipated, after all Verbal was smoking his cigarette in the Turkish style). Are we to believe that Verbal boarded the boat and changed into a fedora and black overcoat to perform the crucial murder? What was the point of that besides trying to fool the audience?
And so many times in the exchanges between Verbal and Kujan, I felt I was watching actors rather than characters.
The bottom line on this movie is that it is no more than a tricked out episode of "Law and Order" without offering anything substantial to think about after it's over.