George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg are more than passable as jaded American soldiers. Ice Cube is merely OK as part of their team going on a mission to retrieve stolen gold.
It’s an interesting but uneasy balance of comedy, history and violence. The tone is all over the place and it doesn’t always work. It’s gritty without being believable, and it’s silly without being especially funny.
It’s genuinely exciting, with some particularly strong scenes – one set on a bridge and another in the streets of New York City. It’s the sort of film you wish the 1990s James Bond instalments had been, with strong characters, credible geopolitics, tight plotting, and a convincing scenario. The Pierce Brosnan films, sadly, had none of those things.
This film is marginally better. Chuck Barris (played by Sam Rockwell) is a successful TV producer who also kills people for the CIA. He’s recruited by George Clooney, works alongside Julia Roberts and is in a relationship with Drew Barrymore.
The story is interesting, and Rockwell and Barrymore have real chemistry together, but Clooney’s direction is awkward and gimmicky. He regularly changes filters and keeps reminding you that you’re watching a film, rather than simply letting you become immersed in it.
The film dodges perhaps the most interesting aspect of Rockwell’s life – the possibility that all of his CIA deeds were completely invented and never took place. That would have made for a whole extra dimension to the story, but it seems that Clooney is a hamfisted director who just couldn’t quite handle the material.
Gates is taken hostage, live on air, by a viewer who lost his money by following investment advice given on the programme. Julia Roberts, meanwhile, is the show’s producer, speaking into Lee’s ear and trying her best to keep him alive.
Directed by Jodie Foster, this is a hugely entertaining film. Clooney and Roberts are at their best. The film does a good job of sustaining the tension, and the show-within-a-film device works extremely well.
It’s nearly brilliant, but the script just isn’t sharp or funny enough. The two leads are both excellent, and there’s plenty of chemistry, but even with their considerable talents the dialogue cannot sparkle and the humour cannot hit home. For example, a thread about the couple accidentally switching mobile phones isn’t sufficiently mined for comic effect. A more skilled writer (such as Nora Ephron) would have done so much more with it.
It’s a shame because Clooney and Pfeiffer exude charm and their performances are worthy of a better film than this.
It’s a fascinating insight into the politics behind the politics. Because it’s from a play, it’s strong on dialogue and character. There’s an escalating tension that’s brilliantly handled by everyone involved. There’s a theme about idealism being eroded by the cynical realities of the political system, and Gosling is superb as a representation of that conflict. Also at their best are Paul Giamatti as a rival campaign manager, Marisa Tomei as a reporter for the New York Times and Jeffrey Wright as the Democratic Senator from North Carolina.
I found the plot needlessly complicated, with a few loose ends, and the “four days earlier” contrivance made that worse.
Clooney is always highly watchable, even if his perfect, unruffled hair looks too good to be true. Tom Wilkinson is compelling as an attorney in the middle of a mental meltdown.
But storytelling that loses you so early on can be frustrating to play catch-up with, and for that reason I never felt fully engrossed.
George Clooney stars, writes and directs but unfortunately can’t decide if he’s making a comedy or a drama. It falls somewhere in the middle – neither very funny nor very exciting, with too much rather stilted sitting around. The all-star cast seems underused, with Matt Damon, Bill Murray and the dreaded John Goodman in underdeveloped roles and not really getting a chance to shine. Only Cate Blanchett (a sympathetic curator with an inconsistent French accent) comes out of it unscathed.
The tone is all over the place. The film flits between trying to make serious points at certain times and seeming like Dad’s Army at others, with “jaunty” music that’s especially jarring. Even the central message – art is so important that it might be worth dying for – is watered down by the way it’s something we’re repeatedly told rather than meaningfully shown.
The final scene – a modern-day glimpse of Clooney’s Lieutenant as an elderly man appreciating Michelangelo in a gallery with his grandson – is particularly awkward and naff.
George Clooney plays Edward, a hitman who moves from Sweden to an Italian village after his cover is blown. Taking on a new job, he’s then commissioned to build a specialist gun by an assassin named Mathilde (Thekla Reuten). While working on the weapon, he develops a relationship with a prostitute named Clara (Violante Placido). He also gets to know the local priest (Paolo Bonacelli) and begins a process of redemption. But dangerous people are out to kill him and he’s unsure who he can trust.
It’s a little slow, initially, but you are encouraged to luxuriate in the beautiful shots Corbijn sets up until the narrative starts pulling you in. By the final third, it’s edge-of-the-seat stuff.
Clooney is at his very best as an amoral man who begins to discover new depths in himself and starts to hope for a better life.
There’s a lack of cliché, with enough twists that the ending cannot be predicted.
