This movie rocks – it’s a great, efficient heist movie with a bunch of young actors I haven’t seen before. Based on a non-fiction book of the same name, the movie describes what might happen if a bunch of people put the message from that book into practice.
Two of the more apparent influences are Michael Mann’s “Thief,” which opens with a heist in progress, and William Friedkin’s “Sorcerer,” a remake of the classic French thriller “The Wages of Fear” about four men from wildly divergent backgrounds who come together to drive a truckload of dynamite over a rickety wooden bridge to help extinguish an oil well fire. Both movies, perhaps not coincidentally, have a score by Tangerine Dream, which for a while had a lock on scoring modern thrillers about desperate people pushed to the edge. This film is Tangerine Dreamy from start to finish. Style, story, and politics elegantly intertwine.
Yeah, this was awesome. Dwayne and Michael were particular standouts for me, though the entire group was great. I totally see the Sorcerer inspiration as well.
Watched this yesterday, and I think it’s an impressive piece of work. Particularly in editing, which I think makes up for a few missteps in the script itself (“I need to get into this valve station, but some oil workers just showed up. I’ll slash their tires to they can’t leave!”). There’s something early-Spielbergian about this movie, to my eyes.
Where the script does succeed is in conveying what all these characters are about very economically. Helps that the performances are all super-solid. All the actors were new to me, though I gather they aren’t quite as unknown as I thought at first.
I think a more developed film could have said something more profound about the issues at stake, but as a thriller with an ensemble of strong characters, this works really nicely.
I liked this also. I read a lot of Edward Abbey in my youth and am very much an environmentalist so I was pretty sure i would like this. Gets me kind of pumped up to get more involved.
If y’all liked this, you should check out the director’s horror movie from a few years ago called Cam. Daniel Goldhaber co-wrote and directed a fiendishly clever script about a cam girl, and lead actress Madeline Brewer does a fantastic job carrying the movie. Heartily recommended!
