Product: Homicide [VHS]
Rating: 2.0
Great story - but the execution misses the mark
First off, I want to say that I simply could not agree more with the review written by Glenn Gallagher, but I think his 3 star rating is a bit too high.I really enjoy some of David Mamet's work and was thrilled to find a Criterion release of one of his films that I had never heard of before.I went into this so excited. David Mamet - Joe Mantegna - William Macy - Ving Rhames in a movie exploring a crime and dealing with issues of faith. How could have I never heard of this before?Unfortunately the dialogue on this movie is very heavy handed and many times comes across literally like people are reading from a script for a play, (especially when Macy and Mantegna are in the car driving together). It is jarring, bizarre and frankly distracting. As the aformentioned reviewer mentioned before, no one talks to each like that in real life. I suppose if the entire movie was made/written this way, that would be one thing. But the jumping back and forth between "is this a movie/is this a play" takes away from the momentum.MINI-SPOLIER ALERTAlso, Mantegna's character almost instanteously makes a leap from not caring about his heritage to caring, nearly at the drop of a hat. Why the sudden change? It's not exactly like the folks who won him over did so by digging deep and engaging in many stirring conversations. They literally just asked him who he really was a couple of times and Whammo - insta-conversion to the cause. Next thing you know Mantegna's character is willing to firebomb buildings. Huh? Just not enough meat on those bones for me to buy into the conversion. Sorry.END SPOILERAny way, seeing how many folks have had this film resonate with them, I don't imagine this review will be a very popular one. With the recent sale on Criterion Collection DVDs, I almost just up and put this one in the cart and bought it based on the story line, the actors and the reviews here. I am so glad I didn't now.I guess the main purpose of my review is to tell you to rent this one first before buying. For most, this movie appears to be very appealing and I obviously don't take any issues with that. Art speaks to us all in different ways. For me, this movie was a big time disappointment.