Reviews by johanlefourbe

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since there was a decent cast involved and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, I’m not sure if I really cared about this story but there is no doubt that Maggie Smith and Alex Jennings both delivered some really solid performances. Indeed, in contrary to the rest of the movie, Smith and Jennings were never really particularly kind to each other but it made their characters so much more interesting to behold. Without them, I seriously wonder if it would have worked at all since, even if the material was not bad, the tone was just too quirky for me. On top of that, they constantly focused on the fact that the past of this woman must be so interesting. As a result, they added a couple of twists regarding her past but, to be honest, I could have done without them. The first one, the fact that Miss Shepherd was apparently a talented pianist, was actually ruined by the opening scene. The second one, the fact that Miss Shepherd was at some point involved in a fatal car accident, was actually seriously predictable and therefore rather anti-climactic. Eventually, the argument made by this movie was that each homeless man or woman might have a fascinating background but is it the only reason why we should actually care about them? In fact, that’s actually the opposite of how Maggie Smith played the character and the main point of interest, at least, as far as I was concerned, was the relationship between this man and this woman. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, thanks to Smith and Jennings, I still think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since I have a weak spot for Alice Eve, I thought I might as well check it out. Well,  Eve was quite charismatic, she also really made the most of this material and it was pretty neat to see her in a Western taking place in New Zealand. Unfortunately, this movie still never really worked though. First of all, I actually think the damned thing actually had some potential but the tone was not raw enough for me. A bigger issue was that too much stuff didn’t make much sense. For example, how did the main character figure out that her son was in Goldtown? Seriously, I watched the scene in the post-office twice and I still didn’t understand how she came to this conclusion. The bad guy was also rather bewildering. I mean, he stole their money, he killed David Lockton but that was apparently not enough, he also wanted to have Charlotte Lockton for himself so that’s why he kept her baby? The only thing that could have make it work was if they might have chosen an actor who would have played the character as seriously unhinged but, for some reasons, they ended up with Jack Davenport who gave a completely lifeless performance. Another thing that didn’t make sense whatsoever was that Joshua McCullen was working for the Locktons, he stole most of their money and within 3 months he managed to build up a hotel in Goldtown? Seriously, the timing felt way off since it was pretty obvious that the guy had been a major public figure in this little town for quite some time already. Anyway, to conclude, I’m afraid it turned out to be another rather half-baked project for the lovely actress and I don’t think it is really worth a look. 

I wasn’t expecting much from the damned thing but since it was starring Clive Owen and Morgan Freeman and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. First of all, it was probably one of the most derivative titles I came across. To be honest, it’s only afterwards that I discovered that it was based on the 47 Ronin legend but even though it was not as bad as the Keanu Reeves vehicle was, it was still pretty weak though. In fact, even though I didn’t make the connection with ’47 Ronin’, for some reason, this movie did remind me of ‘King Arthur’. Indeed, I did rewatch the damned thing not so long ago and I was rather baffled by how miscast Clive Owen was in this movie. Well, more than 10 years later, Owen was again leading another medieval action flick and, to be honest, I thought the guy was again really unconvincing. It’s such a shame because the 47 Ronin legend is actually pretty awesome and they could make a great movie out of this story. Unfortunately, in this case, the whole thing was just so pretentious and very often rather boring. Especially, in the 2^nd act, was it really necessary to have Clive Owen’s character pretending to be a drunk for so goddamned long? On a narrative level, it was also rather awkward that the really annoying bad guy turned out to be right to be paranoid all along. Eventually, they spent at least half of the duration arguing that this guy was evil, delusional and wasting all kind of resources but, eventually, he was the only one who actually figured out what was going on. Anyway, to conclude, I think I was probably generous with my rating here, the damned thing was just terribly forgettable and you should probably avoid it. 

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since there was a decent cast involved, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, even though it definitely had some potential, I’m afraid it never really worked though. Indeed, the two main characters were interesting with some solid performances from Russell Crowe and Amanda Seyfried but the first thing that really bothered me was the back-and-forth in time. In my opinion, it is usually a useless gimmick and, most of the time, it is used because the makers don’t trust their material enough and try to make it look more sophisticated than it actually is. In this case, it was even more annoying than usual because, instead of focusing on what was happening during the actual scene involving this young woman, I was constantly wondering what happened with her father and the other way around. Concerning the part involving Russell Crowe’s character and his little girl, it was actually working fine, as long as they were focusing on their relationship but everything else was hardly interesting. Indeed, it was rather difficult to care about the lawsuit started by his in-laws as it was not only rather ridiculous but there was no room to actually develop these characters which were basically reduced to some rather underwhelming and unnecessary villains. Finally, it might seem like a small detail but it did seem that Jake Davis’s medical issues were more physical than an actual mental disease. Instead of some rather useless meetings with some fancy lawyers, maybe, they should have given some follow-up sessions involving Davis and his psychologist, especially since he spent more than 6 months in a mental institution. His daughter did get a session with a shrink but it happened just once and you might wonder why they didn’t bring this up again since her life was going through some major changes afterwards. Anyway, to conclude, even if the damned thing was rather half-baked, the two couples involved in the two story-lines were actually quite compelling and I think it is worth a look, at least, if you like the genre.