Sorry, this movie sucks

One of my all time favorites.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

This movie was intriguing but 48 minutes in Adam Adam's character makes a very negative comment about republicans. They include every negative reference possible as it relates to being a republican. Why can't hollywood just make interesting movies that entertain instead of slipping in their political agenda. Hollywood is the last place I would look to for guidance on any important issues.

An L.A. art gallery owner who's beautiful, affluent and seemingly successful is surprised to find herself miserable, disillusioned and unfulfilled. Intriguingly, about this time, she receives the manuscript of her ex-husband's debut novel and when she reads it and recognises its metaphorical nature, becomes consumed by feelings of guilt, regret and the desire to meet up again with the man who was her first crush.Susan Morrow (Amy Adams) and Edward Sheffield (Jake Gyllenhaal) had fallen in love as students in New York and the idealistic couple later married despite the opposition of Susan's mother who considered Edward to be unsuitable because he lacked the necessary ambition and drive to be a good provider. Susan, at this time, detested her mother's preoccupation with materialism but later in the marriage, became frustrated at Edward's lack of success as a novelist and broke up their relationship because she considered him to be too weak and not a very good writer.Edward's novel is a revenge thriller about a family of three who are driving along a West Texas highway at night when they get terrorized by a gang of vicious thugs, two of whom, kidnap Tony Hastings' (Jake Gyllenhaal) wife Laura (Isla Fisher) and teenage daughter India (Ellie Bamber), while the third gang member takes Tony to a remote spot in the desert where he leaves him stranded. Later, local detective Bobby Andes (Michael Shannon) is assigned to the case and together the two men eventually discover the bodies of Laura and India who had both been raped and murdered. Tony, who is portrayed as a rather weak man, becomes obsessed with the need to wreak vengeance on all the gang members and with Andes' assistance, does so very effectively.As she's reading, Susan reflects on the cruel way in which she ended her first marriage by cheating on Edward and secretly having an abortion when she was carrying his child. She also recalls him saying that "when you love someone, you work it out. Don't just throw it away. You have to be careful with it. You may never get it again". In the years since their divorce, she has learned that those words were true and that her choice of opting for materialism over love was misguided. She also recalls him saying, after she'd been denigrating his work, that "nobody writes about anything but themselves". This makes his story about a man who was driven to revenge following the loss of the woman and child that he loved even more poignant and moves her to respond positively to his suggestion that they meet up to discuss his book. This reconciliation, however, doesn't materialise in the way that she had expected it might.Based on Austin Wright's 1993 novel "Tony and Susan", this absorbing psychological drama is incredibly stylish, well paced and a visual treat. The ways in which the action slips back and forth between different periods of Susan's relationship with Edward and the events described in his novel are also masterfully done so that the coherence of the whole story and its natural momentum are beautifully maintained throughout.The entire production is well acted with Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal faultless in their lead roles and Michael Shannon and Aaron Taylor-Johnson (as the leader of the thugs in Edward's book) providing very strong supporting performances. There's also a wonderful cameo featuring Laura Linney as Susan's mother which makes an incredible impact, especially considering its very short duration.

The opening credits feature some morbidly obese women dancing naked and it's enough to make you vomit. And I see not point why this is in the picture. The rest of movie is a study in strong violence and language, so if you like lots of "f" words and brutal violence, then this is the movie for you. And then they throw in some Evangelical Christian bashing directed it at Laura Linney's character and once again there is no point for this being in the movie at all. I think they tried to make a shocker like Silence Lambs or Blue Velvet, but it just didn't work for me.

I did have my preconceptions of this film, which were based upon the mixed reviews of it. I had heard it was superficial, and yet others were lavishing praise upon it. The mixed reviews I confess attracted me to the film, and I wanted to see the side of the argument, I would come down upon.The positives first of all. It is beautifully filmed - it's slick, polished and the colours are luscious. It also has an astonishing beginning, which is one of those beginnings in where you go wow and are both 'magnetically' attracted and perhaps if you admit it a little repelled despite your pc correctness saying no you shouldn't be. It has a Lynchian quality to it and offers the promise of a quite wonderful and strange film. The other quality the film has is it's structure - a film within a film. The structure in itself allows for exciting ideas to be developed, and the film makes use of that structure to good if not quite, however, outstanding effect.One other positive, and it has to be said because so much of the film lingers on Amy Adams, is that she is quite simply stunning looking. This may seem like an archaic value judgement, and yet the film does depend upon her attraction to match the slickness of the film. Now this is a problem as well, because Amy Adams isn't really asked to do that much acting, and when the dramatic scenes come you are not quite convinced you care about the fate of her or the other people in the film.The film with in a film does however contain a fine performance from MIchael Shannon; a dying cop investigating the rape and murder of Jake Gyllenhall's characters family. Jake Gyllenall is also the ex-husband of Amy Adams who has sent the film script of this film to her. Therefore the setup is about how much does this film relate to Amy Adams relationship with her ex husband. Amy Adam's character is unhappily married as well, and therefore her ex-husband by way of the script (which by the way is good) reawakens a wish in her to go back to him. There is a critical problem however in that she aborted their child. This is revealed fairly late on in the film and adds a new dimension to the film with in the film.This though is the problem: does the film with in the film convincingly relate to the overall story. I wasn't really convinced because I didn't think there was an explicit enough connection between both sides of the film. The film with in the film to be fair would have made a good enough film on its own. The acting unfortunately is rather uneven throughout both 'films'. Jake Gyllenhall seems too intense for the role, and the film really needed to allow its actors more room for subtlety.This is a complicated and ambtious film and it is very well made, but something is missing from it. It isn't a purely superficial film, because there is depth underlying it. There are characters who are genuinely damaged, but the film ends up being more superficial because it doesn't allow room for the characters to be fully developed. I think the film's main reveal about the abortion comes too late in the film. It might have changed our earlier perceptions of where the film with in film was going and maybe this would have got me more involved with the film within a films meaning.This is a difficult film to review, and you have to see it to really understand, why people have mixed feelings about it. I admired the acheivement, but wasn't emotionally involved in the story. The film isn't a failure, but it is a film that doesn't quite work and it's ending is rather anti-climatic. The film just didn't quite nail it. .