Rotten tomatoes look very positive overall.
I go into movies with as little spoilers as possible, so luckily I don’t even know what type of movie this is! Yay!
It’s out in theaters this weekend, and on HBO Max.
I plan to watch it this weekend on HBO eating hamburgers and hot dogs. Indoor barbeque without a grill.
I’m about 15 minutes in and I have a few non spoiler comments.
If putting on weight is what it took to get Brendan Frazier back in front of the camera, I’m all for it. He holds his own with Del Toro and Cheadle.
Soderbergh sure does love his natural lighting…
…and apparently has decided to film this with a camera that has weird distortion around the edges, very noticeable when it pans. Why??
Great flick. I think the ending really was true to the themes of the movie. Very pleased.
Wasn’t one of his recent movies shot entirely on an iPhone? Maybe he’s doing that again?
Hey, this is me too, high five!
I enjoyed the movie. My only issue with it is the choice to use that fisheye type lense all the time. That was very distracting, and there was no real need for it. What a weird choice.
This was ok. The babysitting job reminded me of The Friends of Eddie Coyle. I’ll echo that I’m not a fan of the fisheye lens and this ongoing trend of directors doing weird shit for weird shits sake with the camera (Snyder and his depth of field being another recent example)
I love it when Soderbergh gets a cast together on the same page! No one works with actors and non-actors quite so well, but these are all excellent actors* at the top of their game, and the script gives everyone serious red meat to chomp on.
One of my favorite exchanges: John Hamm as the cop asks Amy Seimitz if she can think of any reason a gunman might just randomly attack her family’s home.
“Because he hates happiness?” she offers.
Nice! Great parallel, @forgeforsaken! And it definitely recalls movies from that era. But I loved how he eased contemporary social themes into the finale. It reminded me of the excellent I’m Your Woman in that regard. 70s-era crime thrillers, but for audiences in 2020.
However, I could have done without the heavy-handed crawl at the end, especially in the wake of the already heavy-handed celebrity cameo (which I didn’t mind, as the movie had earned it!). Soderbergh, dude, I can get the point from watching the movie you made. You don’t need to jam your elbow into my ribs. At least it wasn’t as heavy-handed as Meryl Streep ripping off a mask and declaring the point of the movie directly into the camera.
-Tom
* Julia Fox from Uncut Gems! I guess we can’t call her a non-actor anymore!
I enjoyed the movie but felt that the ending is not satisfying. I didn’t like I how the corporate character gets his money back. I would have liked to see a greater twist where the briefcase was empty or maybe the mom and son get something somehow. I think there was opportunity with so many characters to be a bit more creative.
Having had a day or so to reflect on it, I really liked how the story unfolded in this one. First there’s the perspective of following a character as he’s given a job, untrusting of who is hiring him. You’ve got the audience knowing even less than the character, as the audience figures out things while the character figures out things, and the audience figures out things about the character that we don’t know yet, and that continues to happen throughout for each of the characters we follow. And then, there’s another layer of things going on that none of these characters are aware of yet, almost like they are pawns in a much bigger game, and they figure that part out along with the audience.
Anyway, it’s not easy to do that without losing the audience, and it’s handled very well here, I thought.
I loved this, in spite of having to pause it several times to let my stomach settle from motion sickness due to the distortion during camera pans.
It’s also the first time I can recall pausing a film, and being delighted to see there’s more runtime left than I had expected.
Three-quarters of the way through. Digging the movie, can’t stand the lenses. Similar intentions kind of ruined The Good German for me as well.
Completely charmed by this. So many good lines. I was trying to pay attention to the edges of the frames to see what the lens was giving us, and I thought the effect was worthwhile. Some of the image shortening was lovely, too.
Uncut Gems comparison: Not sure how I feel about casting Julia Fox mostly to mess with viewers who also saw Uncut Gems, but I was mightily relieved when the officer relieved her of that money—and then disappointed when Hamm gave it all back to Damon like that. This movie made me disappointed he wasn’t a crooked cop!
Nobody comparison: I also think that David Harbor’s personal growth post early movie home invasion was a lot more interesting than Odenkirk’s in Nobody, and I found his unsatisfying and uncertain “what now” ending with his wife to be a lot more delightful than Odenkirk’s quickly earned newfound respect that made little sense if he was just a temporarily lapsed James Bond. Also, nice work saving your marriage, Phil, who was just about the only person besides David Harbor’s wife who didn’t deserve anything that happened to them.
“Can you think of any reason he would attack your family?”
“Maybe he hates happiness?”
My takeaway isn’t that Hamm wasn’t crooked, just that he wanted to be Damon’s man more than he wanted an immediate payoff.
I really enjoyed this film, especially Benecio del Toro as the heavy. He enunciated more clearly in this film than in any other he’s ever done. And Don Cheadle is so recognizable I thought I would be distracted by him, but he somehow disappeared into the role. (The same can’t be said of Damon. I wish people would stop casting him… and John Hamm. Those guys are not great actors.) I really enjoy late career Brendan Frasier too. This film wasn’t quite as elegant as any given season of Fargo, but it was pretty damn fun just the same.
For sure. That was the absolute weirdest thing in that film.
Just watched this. Brilliant script (although there were some things I didn’t follow, why did Aldrick give the cop $50k to let him take Don Cheadle to kill him, then tell Cheadle that his cut of the $50k is $5k and then give him $5k and let him leave?). Great cast. Fantastic crime story that starts in the middle and then explores the origins and consequences of the situation.
But Soderbergh can go fuck himself with his fisheye lens or whatever the hell that was. That was some serious bullshit.
I think it was because Cheadle had invited Aldrick into the deal to make amends for their ongoing beef. Because of that invitation, Aldrick got the other car executive’s 125k. Presumably, he pays off the cop because he has decided to help Cheadle, who he (Aldrick) learns wants 5k to do something in Kansas City. Or I could be wrong. :)
I really enjoyed it too. I loved that they didn’t sugar coat the racism of the period. Really good script, I thought.
Oh, and Soderbergh’s gonna be pissed when he finds out that Shane Black did a movie based on the same conspiracy five years ago.
Ok, I guess I didn’t follow that. He left the money in the hotel (which I didn’t really get either), but I guess you’re right, Cheadle still wanted to get the Studebaker guy’s money, which I guess Aldrick got. Although I also don’t understand how they were planning on selling the documents to both of them.