Roger Ebert is usually pretty dependable when it comes to reviews. I read his review on this after I saw the movie and I'm wondering if he even payed attention to it. It seems like he didn't understand the plot or what some of the characters roles were...
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20121128/REVIEWS/121129985
I agree about Ebert's usual dependability and his questionable review of this particular movie. I don't call it questionable because I disagreed with his assessment of the movie. He's usually someone who offers pretty dependable content in terms of the movies plot and overall story. After I watched the movie today, I went back and read his review and immediately noticed some discrepancies. It wasn't just one thing or something subtle.
For instance, Ebert writes that James Gandolfini plays a high-level mob boss who hires Pitt's character to take out Russell and Johnny. First, I recall Gandolfini's character being a hitman, not a mob boss. And it was Pitt who hires him, not the other way around. Also, the initial heist wasn't pulled of by Johnny and Russell, but rather Frankie and Russell. Johnny was the guy who hired Frankie to do the job, and it was Frankie who recruited Russell. And the hits weren't to be on Johnny and Russell, but rather Johnny and Markie Trattman, played by Ray Liotta.
The fact that he didn't get who Gandolfini was proves he missed the most interesting parts of the movie. The parts where these so called tough guys reveal their reluctance in killing a person and their general ineptitude at what they do. Ebert always asks us not to go by the stars and to read what he has written. And that a critic job is to describe what sort of experience the viewer is in for. I don't think he did a good job this time.
@ Undertoad7... I like what you said about how the "tough guys reveal their reluctance in killing a person and their general ineptitude at what they do."
That's a pretty interesting observation and it might shed more light as to the filmmaker's intent. I remember watching those dialogue scenes with Pitt and Gandolfini as he talked about his marital problems and other issues, wondering where it was all going. I still think it was a little overplayed considering how his character exits the story so abruptly and unfashionably. But I agree that it was dedicated to character development.
Even though it's an incredibly mediocre film, we should listen to Ebert because he voted for Obama and therefore has trustworthy Hollywood thinking that can be relied upon.
shareYou just couldn't help yourself, could you? Not everything has to do with politics, you bitter, petty little man. What would you do without an Obama to hate all day, every day? I suspect that your life would have no meaning at all.
"You can keep the gum."
'What would you do without an Obama to hate all day, every day?'
I would count the money I've lost because of Obamacare...whoops I meant Obama's Ponzi scheme...no wait...they changed the name to distance the debacle from Obama...oh yeah it's called the "affordable" care act. I don't spend time hating him, he's so self involved I just ignore him. It's like watching a live action version of The Emperor Has No Clothes.
So long and thanks for all the fish!
"we should listen to Ebert because he voted for Obama"
Yeah, and let's listen to the village idiot describe the works of Shakespeare.
How's Obama treating you? How are those paychecks doing? Did you notice a big drop in your income? No? You will. Then you will start to wonder why YOU voted for that inept junior-league moron. You did get your "free fone", didn't you? :)
You are a true idiot. The "free phone" you speak of is a program stated under Bush. The president if a Harvard Law graduate but yet label him a "inept junior-league moron. What are your credentials? Everyone pay checks are just find but morons like you will never look at facts.
share"The fact that he didn't get who Gandolfini was proves he missed the most interesting parts of the movie"
Nahh it just proves he didn't care too much about the film because it's mediocre so couldn't be bothered following it
2014 All Australian Captain - http://bit.ly/mSxaYZ
Or maybe Ebert is an old man, and he just doesn't pay attention all the time.
Last Movies Seen:
Killing Them Softly(2012)- 8/10
Men In Black 3(2012)- 7/10
Yeah but he gets payed to, um, pay attention. Every since he gave a thumbs up to Ghost of Mars I have stopped reading anything he writes.
"Don't point that gun at him, he's an unpaid intern!"
In Ebert's defense, he was very ill with cancer at the time, and probably on a lot of drugs. Cut him some slack, guys.
shareReally, really good opiates, I'm guessing. Maybe he nodded out like the junkie guy who did the robbery (who was in Place Beyond The Pines)....see I only watched it last night and I can't remember his characters name....
shareIncorrect.
It is, however, further proof that Ebert never was a good reviewer of films and continues that trend.
Nahh 100% correct. If he was engaged with the film and gave a rat's arse about it he would get the details right. Film sucked, is all
2014 All Australian Captain - http://bit.ly/mSxaYZ
No. Ebert's a professional reviewer/critic. He's been doing that for many years. He's a pro at watching films he doesn't like and critiquing them.
The fact that he got the characters wrong in his review means that he just missed this one. We all have bad days. Maybe he was in a rush to make the deadline.
"A pro at watching films he doesn't like and critiquing them."
Do you have any idea how stupid you sound? Or am I just missing the sarcasm?
"Nahh it just proves he didn't care too much about the film because it's mediocre so couldn't be bothered following it."
If my gardener sucks at brain surgery, I don't care too much. As long as my brain surgeon doesn't.
If someone one IMDb comments on a movie and didn't really pay attention, no biggie. But for someone who has a name as a movie reviewer "[can't] be bothered following" a film that he's being paid to review ...
Plot Hole - the most overused and least understood phrase at IMDb
The film is littered with Obama campaign sound bites and radio bank-bailout reports, and the thudding political allegory keeps poking you in the face while you’re trying to keep track of the story. So I understand Ebert's dilemma.
Nothing like paying for a movie ticket to rehear all of Obama's campaign commercials!
YAY!
Wow, dude. Twice in one thread? Really? Have you taken down the Romney/Ryan sign in your front yard yet, or are you keeping it up to sustain your bitterness and anger for a few more months? Get over it and move on with your life. Or don't.
"You can keep the gum."
RoboSlater completely misses the point of the sound bites (which are not only of Obama, but of GW Bush and McCain, as well.) The whole point of all that, which centered mostly on the financial meltdown, was to give some background on the economic times that were playing out during the timeframe in which the movie takes place. I think it was an interesting and clever trick of exposition to use the television to fill in this background info, instead of having the characters drone on about how bad the economy was in order to drive home the point to the audience.
The film uses these clips in a pretty neutral way and does not employ them to make some political statement...they are used simply to convey information to the audience.
It's great that, with those middle class tax cuts, my paycheck is bigger now.
Thanks to Obama.
I'm glad my son is back from Afghanistan.
Thanks to Obama.
I'm glad my daughter is still covered under my healthcare plan even though she is 22.
Thanks to Obama.
I'm glad my stock portfolio has doubled in worth since 2008 (after the Repugs had tanked the market).
Thanks to Obama.
I'm glad so many millions of jobs have been added to the economy that everyone I know has got one, now.
Thanks to Obama.
And I'm glad that I can now take my firearm into a "federal wilderness area".
Thanks to Obama.
Oh. And, yeah. The film does have a political subtext.
But, I don't think Obama had anything to do with that.
PS. I'm not much of an Obama fan, actually. But, it's fun to cite facts to interesting people. Like yourself.
Roger Ebert is getting old.
Last Movies Seen:
Killing Them Softly(2012)- 8/10
Men In Black 3(2012)- 7/10
Roger is spot on with this review.
shareSpot on? Did you even read his review? If so, you probably noticed that he got the characters and plot wrong. I've never known him to do that. He missed this one. I'm sure he wishes he could retract it.
shareActually, aside from the names of the characters (regarding who was involved in the robbery) and Gandolfini's role... I think the rest of his review is spot on. I don't see what he missed.
shareI like Ebert even when I don't agree with him but on this...? I don't think he was even in the same theater as the movie. Everything, except the names of the actors and their characters is wrong in his review. Even the location (it's Boston and remains Boston!!!) is wrong. It's not one or two things, he misses everything including the plot!
I don't think he saw the movie.
And quite honestly anyone who thinks his review is even close to accurate didn't see the movie either.
You're fixated on this age thing. You've posted twice for the sole purpose of complaining about his age. Yeah, he's older. But so what? He's about Mitt Romney's age, and a lot of people didn't think he was too old to be President! He's also about the same age Reagan won when he was elected President the first time.
Ebert's just writing movie reviews. He's not ruling a country. Unless there's something wrong with his brain, he should be able to do that for years to come.
Roger Ebert might be getting old, yes. That isn't nearly as bad as you throwing '7's and '8's around with your reviews of sub-par movies. I can't imagine how many 10/10 movies you've watched....
shareWatched it the other day. Enjoyed it, bit different.
Bottom line - he either didnt watch the movie, or didnt get the moviea, and his mistake, is glaring. Pretty average - it's his job.
He has a lot of plot points and motivations confused!
shareI'd like to see a crime film that distinctly resembles Killing Them Softly. It is one of the more unique crime films I've seen. The reason this film is so great (imo) is because it was the only film this year that surprised me in a good way.
Manly tears:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZPC0j-f2tU
Hard Eight is really good. This movie reminded me of it. Another good one you might like is a 70's film called The Friends of Eddie Coyle, also based on a George V. Higgins novel.
shareFunny. He hated my two favorite films of the year. Killing Them Softly and The Raid. He even gave The Raid a one star review. Prometheus is definitely not a 4 star film. Hell, not even Skyfall is, but I consider that to be one of the better films of the year. It's all subjective.
Manly tears:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZPC0j-f2tU
I am willing to cut Ebert some slack due to his ill health and sheer number of films he has to see in a given week; but truly he needs an editor or someone to correct the legion number of mistakes he makes on a daily basis. He frequently uses incorrect names and his recall is shoddy at best. Really no excuse, especially with this site (imdb) ready to explain and even list character names and plots.
shareI also thought about that, I read his review and noticed his mistakes but then I thought, hell that guy must see a dozen movies every two weeks. I only go twice a month if I'm lucky so things can get rough if you see that much. Still I feel the score he gave this movie was correct, I found this movie disappointing and predictable and though it started pretty good it got worse as it moved on, the "message" of this film is subtle at best and it feels like the director had no idea how to execute it properly. The source material looks very interesting I might have to read the book and compare it to the movie.
shareEbert's one of the greatest critical writers ever, but even he doesn't always get it right. He's panned plenty of great movies and has also recommended plenty of subpar films.
shareHow are any of you surprised by this? He gave Fight Club 2 stars over a decade ago. I haven't read any of his reviews since then.
shareI didn't like Fight Club, either, much. Ebert called it "macho porn." It appealed to the audiences, but it was pretty much a self-involved excuse to beat each other up and beat themselves up, and then beat up someone else. Still, who doesn't like Ed Norton and Brad Pitt and a little beefcake?
Critics and audiences generally look for different things in movies and have a different perspective. Interestingly, Fight Club AND Killing Them Softly have about the same rating AMONG CRITICS (about 80%) in rottentomatoes. But the audience rated Fight Club much higher than it is rating Killing Them Softly, so far (Fight Club had a very high 95% rating among audiences...KTS so far is running at 65%).
I think the difference in ratings may be...these types of movies attract a large young male audience, so they're not apt to go for stylistic thought provoking small movies.
A bit off topic, but if all you saw in Fight Club was men beating each other up then you missed 90% of the film.
There were a few other subtle things going on like: persistence of identity, corporatism, conspicuous consumption, debt cycling.
You have to take every Ebert review with a grain of salt. He's usually way too generous (just look at how liberally he hands out four-star reviews, even for completely undeserving movies), way too stingy (a measly three stars for "The Godfather Part II"? Yes, he repented thirty years later by adding it to his "Great Movies" collection, but that original review was a flat-out sin), or he seems really confused. This review falls into the latter category. Reading it, he seems to have no idea what's going on half the time and is projecting his own interpretation the other half.
Gandolfini was a mob boss who hired Pitt? Where does he come up with that? It's simply not in the text of the movie, and Ebert is just making stuff up as he writes. It reminded me of his review for "The 40 Year-Old Virgin", where he described a scene where the guys talked about "outercourse". No such scene exists.
I'm having a conversation you cannot hear.share
Still a terrible execution of a potentially interesting movie. Cannot believe reviewers liked this. Ebert was likely already phased out by the time Gandolfini slid onto the scence. I know our audience was.
Flaws all over the place and "deadly" dull -- no pace, no fightback -- just boring characters gibbering on and on and on about irrelevant topics -- and a few bloody up close deaths that fly directly in the face of the premise "killing me softly" (at a distance -- no visible emotion). And the one character you'd actually have enjoyed getting done in (the wacko Aussie) disappears into jail apparently -- so no closure there either. Watch at home with a pillow.
Agreed. This movie had a great cast, a good setup and a potentially interesting plot, but it did very little with what it had.
I loved Ebert's remark that in this movie, gangsters hang out in bars where CSPAN is always showing on the TVs.
@dcarmich-2 I loved Ebert's remark that in this movie, gangsters hang out in bars where CSPAN is always showing on the TVs.
That is a great remark, lol. Who needs ESPN when you've got politicians making speeches?
Ebert is getting old and has not been well. These things happen. To us all.
shareRoger does make some factual mistakes. However, note that he sees the studio version of films before they are edited down for final release. So the scene that did not exist in the theater version may well have existed in the version he saw. I doubt he could have made up a scene.
share