Problem: positive
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Answer: When Philo Vance (Edmund Lowe) is standing precariously on the edge of a balcony high above the city, apparently hypnotized and just about to step to his death,it immediately reminded me of a nearly identical scene in another film made nine years later, "The Woman in Green" in which Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone)is similarly about to hurl himself into space while being hypnotized.

Happily, both Philo Vance and Sherlock Holmes survive these attempts at murder by unscrupulous criminals. Exciting cinematic suspense in both these scenes. When will they learn you can't cloud the minds of great fictional detectives ?

Problem: negative
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Answer: I think this could've been a decent movie, and some of its parts are OK... but in whole it's a B movie. Same about the plot, parts are OK but it has several holes and oddities that doesn't quite add up. Acting is mostly OK, I've seen worse of this too. :)

The beginning sets the level, with cars driving in the desert, making "cool" but totally unnecessary jumps through some small dunes (In slow motion! Cool!), like the drivers had never seen sand before... It gets slightly better from there, but not much.

If you're gonna rent this, get another one too and use this one as a warm-up. Keep expectations low and it might work for you.

Problem: positive
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Answer:
Really the tale of two cocky brothers and their respective falls from grace (via drug addiction) and later redemption. One brother, a self-proclaimed genius played by James Franco is your typical sensitive but intelligent man-child. The other brother is a hard-working future doctor who becomes less judgmental as he himself falls prey to addiction while dealing with the stress of living up to his family's expectations for both children. Not too heavy handed as drug fables are want to be, and all in all a pretty realistic sketch of the family dynamics that drug problems bring about. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in such character studies and commend James Franco for his efforts in what was obviously a labor of love.