Unjustly dismissed and really quite watchable Revolves around two men whose passionate commitment to justice puts them on a collision course. Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt are enormously appealing and gifted actors, and to the degree that the movie works, it's because of them i am surprised the film is rated higher
shareTotally agree. Full of good scenes. I have always been a bit bewildered by Brad Pitt's reputation, even for Fight Club. But I can't think of any film where he was more compelling or impressive than here. I know his accent isn't perfect but it's still pretty marvellous. 5.8 is a ridiculously low rating.
I always find it weird (given America's supposed love affair with the IRA pre-911), that Harrison Ford made two films (Patriot Games was I think the name of the other) where the IRA are the "enemy".
It's easy to take this film for granted as a slightly dated actioner, but I think it's a fine film. Scenes that hit the right note, right on the button....
- the Harrison Ford family scenes (like where his young daughter chortles about being "baptised in Guinness").
- the scene where Pitt stabs away at the old boat, like he has spent his life working with boats.
- the scene where Pitt counter-threatens the arms supplier, with the peculiarly powerful throat-stopping thing.
- the scene where Ford takes Pitt to the bar and they play pool.
This movie has a lot of good scenes.
It gets a bad wrap because of the feuding and perhaps simplification of the central conflict. I didn't feel that way, but of course I've never lived in Ireland or been in a police family, I just went with the story presented and I thought it was a good character drama that delivered on all fronts.
I wish it wasn't Pakula's last film, but it was, and he ended strong enough with "Presumed Innocent" and "Pelican Brief", and this.
From what I read about the original script, I think some of the changes saved the tone. Pitt was in a dark mood with films like "Kalifornia", "Se7en" (a personal fav) and eventually "Fight Club".
As you said, the family scenes and bonding/hanging, even the husband-wife romance, are good. The action and suspense and acting are good.
More violent and untrustworthy qualities in Ford and Pitt would have hurt the needed likeability of characters on differents sides of the argument. The original may have been too much underbelly. We'll never know. I think it's a pride-worthy project to be a part of. Actors will always have favorite experiences and scripts and in the younger years it's probably more disappointing when a project doesn't dome out exactly as you wanted it.
A few scenes that seemed rushed and tagged on perhaps after test screenings. Pitt's hair-length is way different from time-to-time, so I'd guess that a lot of pickup shots and scenes were put into the final release. Nothing terribly worse than normal continuity, I've just seen it several times.
It's a good movie, and probably not realisic to some people's satisfaction, but this was basically a Hollywood "tentpole" picture with bad buzz, and they released it on the decided date. I thought emotionally it worked from beginning to end, and lots of great actors in pretty much every significant role.
Watch it at least twice?
Just finished watching it and I enjoyed it a lot.
... really quite watchable ...I agree. It's a film that had way too much money spent on it , for the type of movie it is. But I think it does work well when the two actors are onscreen together and when we see "Rory" easily integrate into the type of family environment we realise he would give anything to have in Ireland, but we know is unlikely to ever achieve. 🐭 share