Directed by Gavin O’Connor. Starring Colin Farrell, Edward Norton, Jon Voight, and Noah Emmerich. Rated R, 125 minutes.
Let me start by saying that I hope this movie did #1 at the box office this week. The story is incredibly engaging and it plays out as though it were directed by Spike Lee. The acting is well done all around, although Colin Farrell does about as fair a job as he did in Miami Vice. Colin Farrell is not a convincing actor to me. Edward Norton and Jon Voight are top notch and right on with their portrayal’s of their characters.
Basically here is how the story plays out. Jon Voight stars as the father of both Noah Emmerich and Edward Norton’s characters. Colin Farrell is married to their sister so he is basically family as well. All 4 are police officers, I believe Jon Voight’s character is retired. Noah’s character is the boss of Farrell’s character and Norton’s character has been brought on to find out what has just happened to 4 police officers. You see 4 cops who were part of Farrell’s unit, under the supervision of Emmerich, have just been killed and its up to Norton to find out who did it. The film is full of crocked cops out to make an extra buck.
I cannot find any faults whatsoever in the directing of this film, and the only flaw I found in the acting was in the hand’s of Colin Farrell. All the other actors did a brilliant job and the directing was top notch. The screenplay was brilliant as well. Being that the film was over 2 hours long one would assume that I would become fairly bored and stop paying attention. That was not the case with this film.
Although the storyline is not all that original (crocked cops out to make a pay day) I still think the script was beautifully written.
Pros: Almost everything about this film
Cons: Colin Farrell cannot act (although putting his name on the credits is not a con as that puts people in the seats)
Verdict: 8.5/10 Go see this film ASAP
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