disjointed crime film

Rating: 5/10 (14 January 2007)

Despite the uproar and praise for this 1995 Oscar winning crime drama about a man recalling the days he lived in a crime life, I could not settle into the fairly disjointed uninteresting plot.
The acting by Spacey (K-Pax) is good, personally not sure about Oscar deserving but he did well enough to capture the essence of the troubled misleading criminal who recalls the days he was part of a criminal group.
The direction is very well crafted; especially some of the final scenes are exceptionally shot.
It's the story that lets the film down however. Its slow, its boring and I had trouble staying awake. There is slow and there's too slow, and this film was the latter. There seemed to be too much focus on the characters. The relationships were continuous trying too hard to create tension and surprise but unfortunately it did not come off for me. At points the plot jumped too quickly ahead, especially at the beginning when audiences should be getting to know the characters but the film simply does not allow them to settle into the main story and that way allows audiences to play catch up.
It conforms to the genre well with plenty of gun fights, angry money wanting criminals and depressive coppers and these conventions are not portrayed as well as they could have been.
The story is told through Kevin Spacey's character as he explains what happens to the cops. Its an interesting technique and through his vulnerable persona are audiences able to feel some attachment to his character and the plot.
The ending confused me slightly and although it allows audiences to ask questions, it is quite frankly a disjointed ending.