On the Big Board |
| Position |
Staff |
In Brief |
| 31/82 |
Kelly Metz |
Could have been *so* much more than it turned out to be. Disappointing. That wacky Rachel Weisz drove me insane. |
| 115/169 |
Max Braden |
I had such high hopes for this, and it turned out too long, convoluted, and muted. A missed opportunity. |
Writer-director Rian Johnson follows up his 2005 debut Brick with this film about a pair of con artist brothers who - stop me if you've heard this one before - decide to take on one last job before they get out of the business of crime. There are complications along the way (quelle surprise!), and one of the brothers ends up falling for their target. The brothers, Stephen and Bloom, are being played by Mark Ruffalo and Adrien Brody respectively, and their target, Penelope, by Rachel Weisz.
Those of you who made it through a college English class or two might have noticed that all three of these characters' names pay tribute to James Joyce's opus Ulysses, but whether the connection between that novel and this film extends any further than that is an open question. It's the easiest thing in the world to attempt to give your work some credibility by including some vague allusions to the respected work of others, but we'll give Johnson the benefit of the doubt for now and assume that there's more to this than simply name-dropping. The film is scheduled to come out in late October 2008, a timeslot quite possibly chosen for its awards season prospects, but whether it can push beyond Brick in terms of its critical success remains to be seen. It certainly has an impressive cast, but the strength of the script is dispositive here. (Calvin Trager/BOP)
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