In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.

Q: what makes reindeer games even more disappointing than just a predictable , lifeless action flick is the cast and crew who signed onto the project .
most of the people involved in reindeer games just came off terrible slumps with excellent comeback performances in their most recent films .
john frankenheimer , who made the unforgettable cold war drama the manchurian candidate way back in the early 60 's , recently showed critics and fans alike that he still had some magic left in his directorial skills when he created the brilliant car chase scenes in ronin .
screenwriter ehren kruger gave a remarkable first impression when he wrote the script for the underrated arlington rd .
ben affleck displayed his comedic talents in dogma and boiler room , and even on saturday night live directly after the horrible forces of nature and 200 cigarettes .
even charlize theron , who i was convinced could n't act , did a decent job in cider house rules .
when all of these bright stars come together , one would assume that the movie will have great potential to be entertaining .
after coming out of the theater showing reindeer games , disbelief was my first reaction ?
then frustration .
the movie could have premiered on cinemax at two in the morning starring an all - rookie cast and still would have been equally lacking in entertaining .
the acting is so pitiful and the script so dull
, i may have to rethink some of my opinions on how talented these actors actually are .
it seemed like everyone was restricted to just the script and not given a fair amount of improvisational rights .
we have all seen ben affleck have some fun on the set , it is so apparent in a number of scenes in good will hunting when he exchanges jokes with his friends at a bar .
the actors in that movie were having fun and , from that , the audience had fun .
reindeer games is the complete opposite ; the actors do n't seem to want to be their characters ( even danny trejo , who will do practically anything , does n't look like he is enjoying himself ) , causing the audience to quickly lose interest .
evidence of public disapproval was noted when a woman behind me yelled " boy this movie is horrible ! " and when there were scattered giggles during the most dramatic moments .
the story follows a man , rudy ( ben affleck ) , who is leaving prison in a few days along with his best friend and cellmate nick ( james frain ) .
nick has been exchanging love letters with a beautiful woman , ashley ( charlize theron ) , and can not wait to leave prison and meet her in person .
when nick is killed in a prison riot , rudy decides to pretend to be nick and take ashley out on a date for the christmas holidays .
unfortunately ashley 's brother , gabriel ( gary sinise ) interferes with their relationship .
thinking rudy is nick , he kidnaps rudy and threatens to kill him unless he helps rob a casino , which nick use to work at as a security guard .
now rudy must pretend to be nick so he can protect ashley from her brother gabriel .
confused ?
the movie only gets more complex as it goes on , until it gets way , way too complex at its climax .
but reindeer games makes its first serious mistake during the first half an hour .
the hero commits a greedy , selfish act when he decides to pretend he is his dead cellmate in order to date ashley .
some hero .
the point of a hero is to do the morally correct thing , a person for the audience to relate to or admire .
when rudy lies and cheats his way into trouble , instead of gathering support from me for him to ultimately succeed in getting the bad guys , i felt more like he was getting what he deserved and even wanted to see him fail at times .
the most irritating part of the film
( besides the fact that this is a christmas movie released in february ) is the number of chances the bad guys get to kill rudy but fail or delay for some idiotic reason .
the routine in which the bad guy must explain his genius plan to the hero before attempting to kill him with some elaborate machine is getting so tired
nowadays , especially when i eagerly want to see the hero dead .
the only saving grace keeping this movie from receiving zero stars is an amusing but pointless cameo from isaac hayes as a prisoner upset with his food .
why he was in this movie for such a pointless role
beats me .
why any of these people had anything at all to do with this movie
beats me .

A: N
****
Q: capsule : a ham - handed and over / underwritten morality play masquerading as entertainment ,
so muddled it does n't even know what it 's really advocating , if anything .
a time to kill has been hailed as the best of the grisham adaptations , and it 's easy to see why
: it presents a strong , almost rancorously so , story ; it is full of good actors ( samuel l .
jackson , matthew mcconaughey , sandra bullock , kevin spacey , charles dutton ) ; and
it 's ostensibly about some important social issue that we 're all tangling with .
it is not , however , a good movie , and all of the reasons i 've listed above have something to do with why .
right from the beginning , the movie is dead - set on stacking its deck as thoroughly and unrepentantly as possible .
a pair of redneck whites , boozed and drugged out of their minds , kidnap a young black girl , abuse and rape her horribly , and leave her for dead .
after their arrest , their father ( jackson ) takes an assault rifle and guns them down on the way to trial .
mcconaughey is then drafted in as his lawyer , and the rest is somehow strangely predictable courtoom movie dramatics .
the acting is not quite what it should be , given the cast we have .
sandra bullock ( who is a good actress but not a serious one ) looks clueless ; spacey 's accent switches itself on and off at random ( and he 's given a totally thankless role to play as well , a role without an iota of depth ) ; and mcconaughey 's role is stamped from the cardboard back of a cereal box .
the most memorable role is donald sutherland 's , and his is a bit part .
i always consider it an index of a movie 's desperation when it is able to present shocking and outlandish events , and somehow not have them generate an ounce of impact .
there is one scene -- a riot outside the courtroom -- that should have created incredible tension , but winds up playing out like a textbook exercise on how not to deploy a scene like this .
because the movie does n't know what it 's really about ,
it * ca n't * generate any genuine tension , and so it has to artifically inject tension through clumsy plotting .
one of the ways it does this is by throwing in a whole subplot about a bunch of vicious kkk cross - burners -- which is tidied up so neatly that it borders on the nihilistic .
i was reminded of the despicable betrayed , which tried to tart up a fundamentally empty story by injecting vile , graphic acts of racism as little more than an attention - getter .
the movie immolates an enormous amount of its potential by making a few critical mistakes .
first of all , the jackson character is not hard to judge ; there 's no tension in his dilemma .
he 's self - admittedly guilty and should be sent to jail , no matter how moral his crusade .
the old saw about how no court in the land would convict him , if he was white , is supposed to be the underlying theme of the movie , but it 's never developed into an organic component of the story .
it just sort of floats around on top while the movie grinds away furiously with its plot mechanics .
another mistake is in motivational logic : by not having the two white thugs arraigned first -- or maybe tried and then dismissed from lack of evidence , say -- we have that much less empathy for jackson 's character .
i 'm probably supposed to think that just because he had his daughter raped , we are * automatically * supposed to feel empathy for him , but that 's precisely the kind of facile thinking that makes real justice impossible .
( see the virgin spring for more on that note . )
is jackson 's character then simply insane ?
that prospect is n't given terribly serious treatment either .
one of the most aggravating things about coutroom movies is how little they seem to know about how the law works , or how lawyers get their information .
mcconaughey 's character makes an important slipup late in the movie , when one of his witnesses turns out to have been convicted of a capital offense .
how did the prosecution get this information ?
how come he did n't get it ?
the whole way these questions get handled are symptomatic of the movie 's way of dealing with complex legal and moral questions in cheap screenwriterly slam - bang fashion .
this is the biggest problem : the movie is n't about jackson 's character , or his dilemma , or this case , or any of its ( frequently interesting despite the porcine writing and direction ) characters .
it 's not ultimately about anything at all , except its stupid geared - down plot , which inches onwards in one unremarkable scene after another towards a totally contrived ending .
at two and a half hours , the movie is overlong and drastically overwritten
: there 's endless stuff about things which ultimately add up to nothing , and no writing about the material that should really matter .
it 's all handwaving .
the closing argument are also sneaky and underhanded , and underscored my suspicion that the movie is manipulative and unfair .
it 's not easy to make a movie about something .
the other day i saw kurosawa 's phenomenal rashomon , a movie that is really about the way people deal with truth and reality ( or do n't ) .
a time to kill is as empty and ponderous a movie as i 've seen in a long time .

A: N
****
Q: richard gere is not one of my favorite actors .
however , i like courtroom dramas , and this film looked good enough to take a chance on .
i was n't disappointed .
it was n't a great film , but it was interesting , and took several unexpected turns .
one thing : what 's with the title ?
not only is it extremely forgettable , it does n't really have much to do with the film , as far as i could determine .
in the long run , it will probably hurt the film , as people wo n't be able to think of or remember it .
martin vail ( richard gere ) is a grandiose defense attorney .
he loves the money and the fame that go along with defending ( successfully ) rich scum , such as mafia men and drug - dealers .
once he sees that the accused killer of a prominent chicago archbishop is a baby - faced alter boy , he wants in on the case , presumably for the press he 'll get .
we soon find out that the prosecutor assigned is a former lover , janet venable ( laura linney ) .
vail himself is a former prosecutor , and quit because of tensions between himself and the district attorney , played very well by john mahoney ( frasier 's father on the tv series ) .
there is an underlying theme of dichotomy in the movie : people have public faces , and private faces .
we see this in the murdered archbishop , in the accused , and , most strongly , defense attorney martin vail .
richard gere does a fairly good job .
at
first , he appears to be a money- and attention - grabbing lawyer , with no consideration of the truth .
but we see another side , as he becomes a seeker of justice , and comes to believe in his client .
alfre woodard , as the judge , is capable , though somewhat wasted in a standard role .
laura linney also does journeyman work ; nothing spectacular , but acceptable .
her relationship with vail is believable ; their verbal fencing adds to the film .
the actor who playes vail 's investigator ( unfortunately , i do n't remember his name ) is quite good .
his female assistant ( she looked very familiar , but i ca n't remember where i 've seen her ) was also capable
, but unspectacular .
the best performance in the film was by edward norton .
he was excellent , as the timid altar - boy turned alleged " butcher boy of st .
mike 's
" .
i was impressed by the depth of the plot ; there are red - herrings , and dead - ends , that in a lesser film would lead to a predictable ending .
i liked the plot twists the film took , and most of the supporting characters , thus i give primal fear a respectable b+ rating .

A:
P
****