Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Robert Joyner The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

TheFilmGuy1 This is a film that I wanted to like, but just didn't quite do it to me. It's a fairly basic plot that's redeemed by a few really good sequences. There's also some great performances which help it, but it doesn't live up to what it could have been.The story is about two brothers, one who's a cop and the other who runs a nightclub and is involved with some criminals. A series of events causes the one brother to choose between his lifestyle and his police family members. The big issue is that it doesn't really give us anything original. It hits a lot of the plot points you would expect a movie like this to have, which is disappointing. It also feels really slow, but not in a good way. It just seems like they could have showed us what they wanted to show but in a more time efficient way.I wanna talk about the three sequences I liked the most, because these scenes really impressed me and just made me feel that the rest of the film was lacking. The first sequence is the drug house scene. While what occurs during it is mostly cliché, there is some crazy action towards the end that impressed me. Then comes the car chase. It's filmed from within the car essentially looking from Joaquin Phoenix' characters point of view. It's pretty tense and has not music, which makes it feel more real. The only issue is that there's something not visually right with it. What might that be? It was apparently filmed during a sunny day, and they then digitally made it stormy looking and rainy, giving it a slightly unreal look which takes away from it. Regardless, it's a good scene. Finally, my favorite sequence is the whole end shootout. There some stuff involving a field of tall bushes which makes for some intense moments, and it really looks good. Sadly, the rest of the film looks and feels pretty uninspired, aside from these three sequences.This is a film that is in need of some more creativity. Only those few sequences I mentioned feel like the director had some kind of creative ideas, but the rest is filmed so basic that it takes away greatly. Some people might be able to look past it's flaws, but I personally wanted more from it.

juneebuggy Not sure why I didn't like this more than I did? It just felt kinda average despite a great cast (Robert Duvall, Mark Wahlberg, Eva Mendes) and exceptional acting from Joaquin Phoenix. The plot was interesting with Phoenix playing a shady NY nightclub manager who clashes with his police chief father and cop brother before crossing the Russian Mafia.There were also some very tense and uniquely filmed scenes; the car shootout, the bust, the final scene in the grasslands and smoke and the story also seemed epic in it's telling, with events winding up very different than how they started out.Ultimately this should have felt like one of those classic undercover cop dramas (Heat, Departed, The Town) but it just never did. That opening scene with Eva Mendes... is some kinda sexy! 6/2/14

sammy-balamy Great performances and direction. The characters are three dimensional, not overstated and sympathetic. Even though it's a two hour film it was good enough to have been longer without dragging. All of the characters are interesting enough to merit more time for development. I'll be looking for a director's cut or an extended version. Forget the formulaic, plodding, and disjointed accusations. This is simply a good story with credible characters who have realistic and multi-layered relationships with one another. Formulaic films are based on a popular format without any depth or insight; this movie has both. Because sibling rivalries and cop dramas are popular doesn't mean they should be ignored as a subject.Plodding movies have scenes failing in dialogue and performance which slow the plot down. I didn't find one scene to fault in this way, both dialogue and performance are top notch. Disjointed means that the plot doesn't flow in a coherent manner making the movie looked spliced together. The plot's progression and coherence had me watching intently for the whole movie and trying to think ahead for the characters, to find it disjointed one would need a pretty short attention span. A great find and a nice change from the many formulaic cop movies around.

sheepmonk2000 As you may have guessed from my summary I turned this movie off before it ended...and here's why:The plot: derivativeThe characters: StereotypicalThe direction: Cliché - too dark (literally)The acting: Just OK apart form Mark Whalberg who is extremely irritating.The score: AbysmalSo all in all this movie was pretty terrible. The pacing is so painfully slow that at 45 minutes I felt like I had been watching the film for at least 3 hours. Everything about this movie is boring, boring, boring and my advice to anyone thinking about seeking this one out is simply don't, as you will be left disappointed despite the ridiculous high rating the film has on this website that suggests otherwise.