By Ted Baldwin
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By Ted Baldwin |
| Reindeer
Games Reviewed:3/1/2000 Regrettable. This was released at the wrong time of year, and Ben Affleck, as charming as he is, is too charming for this role. Check out adorable Ben at www.Affleck.com! (No, I like him, I really do...) |
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| FIVE POSSIBLE (for what it is) | ||
| Trying for convoluted in a mess scribed
by the guy that did the startling and memorable Arlington Road (where was THAT
at Oscar time, huh?) Frankenheimer turns in a sloppy story about a guy much too
sweet around the edges (aw gee, he's gonna HATE himself for taking advantage of
that poor unknowingly bereaved girl, he really WILL tell her after the
holidays...) drafted into a nightmare heist by the girl's half-wit
armed-robbery-virgin trucker brother named Monster. None of this washes, and
apparently neither do the characters. I mean you could stand to watch this, and there are some relatively exciting moments - but it is more or less a waste. (The bad news before it started was that the theater, normally full on a Saturday afternoon, was only a third up just the second day of release) It is about ten thousand times more interesting than Pushing Tin, which tells you about how sub-par it is. The main guy, Rudy, under constant threat of death by Monster, (Gary Sinise doing Gary Oldman), never has any real power. And nothing real is at stake, except his life, but we never really get that he is in danger. Too much emphasis on beating the royal shit out of Affleck, and not enough on anything else. It does not bond us to him. And there really is nothing stopping me from beating the shit out of this film. Point made. To be fair, Affleck does a good job with what he has. He is just too damned likeable for a flick like dis. |
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