So much potential, but just so WEAK, WEAK, WEAK!
This format, where a number of people are joined together by a series of events and manage to touch each other in one way or another, really is one of my favourites. I don't mind if this is approached in a drama, a comedy, or action. I can think of dozens of examples where it has worked - Crash, Pulp Fiction and Love Actually to name but a few - so you can imagine my excitement when I stumbled across this one at the weekend in the local Blockbuster...and in turn can imagine my disappointment having watched it.
Let's be fair now, it wasn't awful and if anything, I found it very entertaining. However (and that's a big however), I will never watch it again and shall always remember it as being full of holes and never being able to hit that emotional point that it worked so hard towards.
If anything, I think it may have been the editor who is most to blame as some things just didn't make sense. Let's consider a few of these and other things that just didn't work:
An enforcer who can glimpse the future? Ha, well I'm sure this is something that has already been very well spurned here so I won't spend too much time on it. Yes, I would be happy to get on board with that theme anywhere else, but the fantasy element just didn't sit well in what was otherwise a serious drama. Aside from that obvious point, did I miss something, or did they fail to flesh this out in full? Brendan Frasier notes that he's losing his 'sight' having been introduced to a photo of Sarah Michelle Gellar, but that's it. We never really get anything more on the how's, or why's and it is left for us to decide for ourselves why he's lost it. Don't get me wrong, I love a good thought provoker, but we were given so little to go on that it just became a guessing game. WEAK.
Staying with Brendan, there is the scene close the start where we see him for the first time in this role (waiting in the home of forest Whiticar). Obviously we have to play the right time line here (see the cut on his cheek). We see what can only be assumed as an epiphany here where he doesn't want to continue on this henchman course anymore, almost breaks down in tears and hands over his gun. Obviously this is about the time where he has met SMG which would explain his turn in approach, but again, it was all very rushed - we didn't seem anymore examples of this and then he's dead! Did they just try to cram too much in?
Again, staying with Forrest...what was all that business on the roof about?! He explains that he's going to rob the bank (fine, good plot line) and that he has his escape route (we see the plan). I can then only assume that he takes a wrong turn due to traffic and ends up back at the bank (nice, very funny), but the cops seem not to notice him, thus he could have just wandered off (they cops after all have only just arrived and don't know who they are looking for). For what then makes ZERO sense, he then takes himself to the roof...where all the sharp shooters are waiting for him in perfect position (nonsense). Opting for death he then throws the money off the roof (conveniently so that it can be collected later by SMG), but why? Again this act makes no sense, as does the laughter he lets out. Is this because he will be granted the sweet release of death, or the irony that his plan went so wrong when he was almost free and clear? Sorry, I don't want to sound like a broken record here, but this was very poor.
How about SMG? She's a huge celebrity name who can't walk the street in one scene, but cut to the end where she has her money and is making her getaway through the airport...and no one gives her a second glance.
Hmmm, I'm sure if I watched this again I could find more faults, but that's really enough for me. Silly errors, plot lines that could have gone somewhere, but never had a chance, it's all a bit too much.
Fail.
If it bleeds, we can kill it.