It turns out that this movie is actually about the psychological journey that the crime boss goes through. We get insight into the madness that creeps into his brain as he tries to understand why the woman he loved so completely has betrayed him, and why she would do so with the particular fellow she betrays him for. In taking on this psychological exploration, our protagonist works things out through in-character conversations with people that are not in the room, through careful flashbacks -- both real and imaginary, and by listening to the banter of his henchman who are standing by waiting for the boss to decide how he wants to handle the situation. The latter parts, by the way, are all played by veteran British actors whose characters cover several generations and all carefully represent not only their own views and understanding of life, but also different facets of the crime boss himself. Seeing how these characters interact, their banter (often quite funny) reveals the complexity of how we form our perspectives -- often juggling conflicting goals and ideals in order to settle on the best course of action.
All in all, this was a very engaging and carefully crafted movie. I enjoyed the inner struggle of the protagonist, both within his own mind and through the actions of the characters he surrounded himself with, and I really enjoyed the amazing acting talent contained within the film. One character in particular, for instance, does not have a single line in the movie, and yet there is never any doubt whatsoever of what is going through his mind as the plot develops. This is a gritty, but altogether brilliant film. Highly recommended -- and much better than the movie that I thought it was going to be.
Movie to Skip: Journey to Promethea
How do I put this delicately... this is a crap film. Billy Zane isn't even trying, and most of the supporting cast is pretty bad. I mean, this is yet again another Zane movie where he barely phones in his performance (maybe he took the trouble to email it in) and still receives credit on the box cover and the billing. In my opinion, with very few exceptions (perhaps in his earlier and more notable career), Mr. Zane is the kiss of death for a movie. If he's in it, it's probably going to suck, and he's going to put forth $5.37 worth of effort. Yeah, that's right... a "will work for a #7 at Taco Bell" performance. How lame. Zoolander is a lie. Billy Zane's not cool; he's a lazy actor that can't even be bothered to cobble together a 'Captain Kirk' level performance for a pay day. Boo!
But hey, let's not lay all of this down at Zane's lazy feet. I can come up with all kinds of other reasons that made this movie really, really stupid:
- The same "enslaved" people seem to be marching under guard, for some unknown reason, for eight years - by the chronology of the movie;
- Despite how wretched the enslaved people are, everyone still seems to be rather jovial in the villages -- which must be happening when they're not being marched around for some odd reason;
- All the costumes of the villagers are bright and poofy like an exaggerated Renaissance fair, and yet their faces all have dirt smudges all over them;
- The "knight" costumes of the bad guys are so horribly insufficient (one step above aluminum baking pans with cut off sweat pants and odd blousy shirts), that they appear to be poorer than the enslaved people -- not to mention more out of shape and less capable of delivering realistic dialogue;
- (spoiler) There is NO final confrontation between the ultimate bad guy (Zane) and the good guy;
- In fact Zane obviously filmed his scenes in an afternoon because (spoiler) he never leaves the one room he's in, never changes his costume (which is even more pathetic than the knight costumes - and it is NOT the costume on the cover), and only interacts with a couple of other people that ever appear anywhere else in the movie -- even though their supposed to be his bad guy henchman agents exacting his will;
- Oh, and how about the fact that a bit part actress appears on the box cover, as well as another character that spends less than 10 minutes on screen, but our HERO, who is supposed to be the savior of all of... er... whatever that stupid kingdom is called... is not on the cover at all? Yeah, those two guys at the bottom... neither one of them is the lead. In fact, one of them is from a flashback, and the other guy, well, hell, I have no idea who he is.
- Do I need to go on?
On the other hand, there are some kind of fun things that happen in the movie. For one, both Zane and the princess in this movie appear to have harems of scantily clad women around them at all times. Zane's are pretty lazy and simply lounge about the place reciting horrible dialogue with all of the skill of a sixth-grade school play. But the princess' group are dressed as barbarians (reads: faux leather mini skirts and tops in the style of Gabrille from Xena: Warrior Princess), carry swords, and are supposed to be her faithful bodyguards. Now, in point of fact (spoiler), of those same bodyguards, one of them, who has served the princess "since she was a little girl," will betray her at the drop of the hat when she unsuccessfully tries to seduce the hero - who looks 14 and for whom the 25+ year old princess obviously has a crush - and then runs off to tell the bad guys where the hero's camp is when she starts getting thirsty. But other than that, the ladies of the princess' harem generally appear to be willing to engage in some piss poor fencing with Zane's fat aluminum pan and sweat pants wearing knights in the final "battle." While they were all terrible fighters, and even worse actresses, I will have to put down scantily clad sword wielding harem on my "to-do" list. That just looked fun. Of course, I never did figure out the outfits. The women all slept in the same chamber as the princess while back in the castle, all wearing the kind of gowns you would expect in a B-movie film that has a royal court of ladies, but for some reason, when it came down to business, they dressed like savages. So weird. And one of several wierd things about this movie.
Realize, dear reader, that I gave one FULL star to this movie for the lady bodyguard alone. The other half star is for the acting, writing, directing, cinematography, and general nonsensical calamity that was the plot line to this turd. This is a really, really stupid movie and should probably not be watched by anyone. But that doesn't mean you can't also put down the scantily clad sword wielding harem on your "to-do" list as well... Just skip the movie.
