Terrific Lead Performance, but Terrific Film Runs Out of Gas

Rating: 8/10 (1 February 2009)

Mickey Rourke is, indeed, as terrific as advertised and his performance is worth the price of admission. Aranovsky's films are very interesting and his style here is similar to the one evident in PI, his first major release. The film's first two-thirds is wonderful, and while watching it, I'm thinking that this film is going to be a major work to be remembered decades from now. The trouble is, the plot points that drive the latter third, divided between the relationship with his estranged daughter as well as the relationship with a stripper friend are handled so tritely that I can only figure that the writer didn't know what to do after he came up with the premise for the story. The result being that the ending is quite disappointing compared to the previous part of the film. Nevertheless, the first two-thirds of the film are mesmerizing shouldn't be missed.