Reviews by johanlefourbe

Since I kept hearing some really good things about this movie, I was quite eager to check it out. Well, to be honest, it took me a while to really get into this movie. Basically, the whole thing was at first actually rather murky in my opinion. Indeed, who was exactly Busgy Siegel, who were all those people related to him and why did he actually go to Los Angeles? Fortunately, later on, it became much more obvious and, from that point, I got rather hooked by this story. Indeed, the directing was fine, they managed to give a good feeling of the 40's and all the supporting actors gave very good perfomances, especially Annette Bening. Eventually, the driving force of this picture was definitely Warren Beatty. Indeed, he was a perfect choice to play this character and he gave a real powerhouse performance. Indeed, thanks to Beatty, Bugsy was at the same time charming, manic, visionary and rather fascinating to behold. To conclude, even though I don’t think this movie was really a masterpiece, above all because the whole thing was sometimes rather unfocused, it was still a pretty good movie and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

To be honest, I wasn’t really expecting much from this flick but since I have a weak spot for John Dhal’s work, I thought I might as well check it out. Indeed, back in the 90's, John Dahl was a very interesting director, specialised in the film noir (I especially loved ‘Kill me again’ and ‘Red Rock West’) and, even though he had a decent career, this would be his last full length feature (since then he has been only working on various TV-shows). Eventually, this flick was something really different than his usual work but it was still far from being great, I’m afraid. Indeed, this time, he went for a black satirical comedy but the end-result was rather mixed. I mean, Ben Kingsley was, as usual, very good and Bill Pullman did a  fine  joob as well, Téa Leoni was decent but nothing great and Luke Wilson did his usual laid-back guy. So, there was nothing really to complain about the actors and the directing was competent enough. No, the main issue was with the story which was just too weak and honestly, not really believable. To conclude, it was a decent watch but John Dahl has done much better in the past.

To be honest, for some reasons, I have never been really attracted by this movie. It probably had to do with its title. Indeed, on one hand, it was annoyingly patriotic and, on the other hand, it is simply plain lame. Still, this movie seemed to have such a decent reputation as it had been nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award, it was on the '1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die' and according to Roger Ebert, it was even the best movie made in the 80's, only behind ‘Raging Bull’. Well, eventually, I thought it was actually a rather weird movie. The beginning, focusing on Yeager, was actually quite awesome and uplifiting thanks to a fine performance by Sam Shephard. But, for some reason, this awesome character was somehow dropped after 45 minutes and the movie focused above all on the first American astronauts. The story, at the same time, became some tribute to these American heroes but it also made fun of the whole endeavour and the whole thing pretty much looked like a circus. So, you had some action, drama and also some satirical comedy but this mix didn’t always work in my opinion.To conclude, I don't think it was great but the whole thing was sometimes quite spellbinding and I think it is definitely worth a look.

Following his first directing efforts (‘Confession of Dangerous Mind’ or ‘Good Night, and Good Luck’), there was a point when George Clooney could actually become one of the most promising directors at work at the time but, unfortunately, it all stopped with this movie. Indeed, before its release, the expectations were rather high but it received eventually some rather lukewarm reviews but I thought I might give Clooney the benefit of the doubt so I was still eager to check the damned thing. Well, to be honest, the whole thing turned out to be indeed rather disappointing, I’m afraid. I mean, it was definitely not a bad movie but it was just way too shallow and fluffy for my taste. It is pretty obvious that it was supposed to be fluffy as it was some kind of homage to all those succesfull screwball comedies from the 30's, 40's and 50's but even though I always appreciated those, I have never been a huge fan so maybe that’s why I didn’t care much for this movie. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it is a rather well made feature and George Clooney was a perfect fit for this style but don't expect anything inspiring like we got from his previous directing efforts. 

In my opinion, anything involving Gary Oldman is worth a look and it has been maybe 8 years since I have seen a movie with Virginie Ledoyen so thre were enough reasons to watch this flick. Well, eventually, I thought it was not bad and it reminded me of 'Straw dogs' and 'Deliverance' even if this movie never reached the level of those two classics. Gary Oldman, as usual, kicked some ass and delivered a good perfomance. Paddy Considine and Aitana Sánchez-Gijón were also good enough and quite convincing. On the other hand, I had a rather hard time with Ledoyen. I mean, I'm not sure if it was her character or her performance that actually irritated me. Anyway, she looked nice but she was the weakest member of the cast. Anyway, the main issue was that the story was rather weak at some points. Basically, the movie started slowly and then it got pretty exciting, and then it got slow again and then exciting again. When you think about it, nothing much really happened during the whole thing. And the other thing that bothered me was that they kept some whole chunks of the story completely in the dark from the start until the end. I get that they did it on purpose to give a sense of mystery but it was more annoying than anything else. Anyway, to conclude, it was nothing original but it was rather well made and if you like Gary Oldman like I do, it is actually worth a look.