see, thats why I don't gamble!

Rating: 1/10 (9 August 2006)

Just when Vegas broke the house with odds that no auteur could upstage Shyamalan's Lady in the Water in the "biggest disappointment of the season!" category in drops Oliver Stone with this ABC-Family weeknight movie (well, it could have been straight-to-TV had it not been so schmaltzy). Stone, the man Colin Farrell quoted as being "the last ****ing hero in Hollywood" offers a film so relentlessly and indecently maudlin it would make Hallmark blush and 80's teen movies turn to salt. Stone, too shell-shocked by Alexander's fantastic failure to dare add any style, comment or individuality to this work, instead ops to handle the embarrassingly flawed narrative with cozy woolen kid gloves. What's left is a perfunctory pastiche with an exposed ultimate sin - an unapologetic screenplay that sweetens daunting insincerity with the pungence of forced sentimentality. From its mache art direction to its plucky-at-best cast, the story is the only thing it could not dare to have been  content. It is content to be eccentric instead of intriguing and the ensemble is content to be respectful instead of enthusiastic. The end product runs as a reflexive tip-of-the-hat to positions of public servitude that needed no such insincere, limply-rousing thanks. Rent United 93 in September.