Utter disappointment

Rating: 4/10 (12 December 2001)

I managed to catch a sneak preview of this film at my university and have to say I was thoroughly unimpressed. Cameron Crowe crafts an enthralling and disturbing first two acts, only to ruin his work with a pathetic cop-out ending. I'm not sure how much Crowe's plot deviates from the foreign language original, but this is a truly disappointing effort from one of the industry's better writer/directors. The film is rendered all the more disappointing when you realize that some truly great dialogue (especially from Jason Lee and Penelope Cruz' characters) was squandered on an utterly forgettable movie.