Friday, October 23, 2009
GOOD BAD GUYS
Today's Richard Linklater film was
This is Linklater's first big budget film and it sort of runs away with him. The production values are terrific as is the camera work. There is a lot of innovation.
The true to the bone story is thin as most true stories are. This is why Hollywood stuffs them with nonsense.
Since Linklater didn't stuff, it is a little lame. We could have done with a good 90 minutes.
The Newton brothers see crime as an occupation and robbing banks as a mere leveling of the social playing field.
They are also good at it.
They rob a lot of banks, have one romance, show a lot of brotherly love, no one gets hurt much and they all pay the price by going to prison.
The credits are side by side with two television interviews with two of the surviving boys who had a great life as far as I can tell.
It was guilty fun. The boys are all young actors not terribly experienced so they don't wring a lot out of what there is to their parts.
The talk is good as it is in all Linklater films.
I will give it a 3 out of Netflix5 because I liked it moderately but not effusively. I sure wouldn't want to see it again. Great trains, incidentally. Wonderful explosions of period banks.
