Stars Jeff Daniels, James Spader and Portia de Rossi.
The story: a disillusioned human rights worker goes down to Mexico to help workers as they try to unionize in a factory that is trying to fight unionization. While there he becomes involved in two mysteries -- first 22 deaths in a collapsed tunnel that appears to be drug-related and then the killings of two kids on the exact same day -- two mysteries which are very intertwined.
Was it good?
Almost. The first half was VERY slow. The initial stuff of Daniels' character coming down and dealing with workers, etc, was pretty boring to me. It didn't help that Daniels is playing a depressed character so his energy is in the negatives. It feels like he is sucking energy out of you. Yes, it's what the character calls for, but it doesn't make for a great watch. There's also a bunch of stuff with James Spader and Portia de Rossi all of which could be cut out. I guess they are there to talk about unionization and stuff, but they have nothing to do with the central mysteries and so they just make the first half feel very unfocused.
It's at midpoint that the two mysteries become intertwined and that's where the story gets interested. The next half hour is good investigation storytelling. Unfortunately the movie ends on a lame note, needing a death bed confession from a character I'm not sure I had seen before (yes, I commited the sin of double tasking).
*** SPOILER *** There is one scene I still don't understand and it seems like a weird giant plot hole to me, but maybe it is explained and I missed it. At one point Daniels and Rossi are kidnapped and forced to dig their own graves, except they actually uncover the bodies of the two boys that were killed. And then the bad guys have disappeared. So...were those bad guys who had them at gunpoint or were they good guys showing them where the bodies were or was there something else that I missed?
For me, although the second half got better, ultimately the uninteresting first half and the deus ex machina confession at the end made the movie weak. The actual story/mystery wasn't that interesting either and to get all the pieces to connect -- the kids, the people in the tunnel, the factory -- actually takes a lot of things to have happened, so instead of it being something that seems complicated but is actually clever and simple, this is something that seems simple and is actually long and complicated...which is never as satisfying in a mystery. And there isn't any other big insight -- companies are greedy. Gotcha. It was okay, but I need more for a recommend.
**** NOT RECOMMENDED (but not horrible) ****
No comments:
Post a Comment