Charming and brutal

A Brilliant Conflict

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Blistering performances.

The movie does have a nice compelling B-movie flair to it. It works on many levels (especially if you like the movies this was obviously inspired by), but mostly in single parts. Put together something seems to be missing to make this stand out. But you can see that the guys who made this might be up to something. So as another reviewer also stated, good things will probably are ahead of us.The actors here are doing the best they can, but a real connection seems to be missing for the viewer. While the ideas themselves are well thought of, the piecing together of those ideas, might have been a bit faster than it should've been.

Perhaps any movie featuring diamonds should say "Thanks, Elizabeth Taylor" in its closing credits acknowledgments. (In this mildly involving hotel hold-up yarn, Val Kilmer also phones in one of his dippiest performances ever, as Maz the OCD stolen jewels cutter.) Maybe such films also should say "Thanks, Marilyn Monroe." (Kilmer's character is one of the few from the old gang who survive till the end of this story.) Maybe the 2:22 filmmakers got all their prop jewelry from the late night infomercials during which Liz used to shill copies of all those make-up jewels Richard Burton had to substitute for make-up sex when he was too drunk to get it up. (Most of the plot developments of 2:22 have a strong "been-there, done-that" feel, as if the producers gave the screenwriters a file folder containing their favorite dozen heist flick scenes, and told them "pick any six.") The best efforts of the estate lawyers behind the legends of Liz and Marilyn do not change the fact that the diamond cartel has butchered thousands of people, destroyed millions of lives, and stockpiled about 3,457 diamonds of .5 carats or more for every man, woman, and child alive on Earth today--all starting because the price of these relatively common whitened chunks of coal had dropped to 10 cents per carat! (Now, THAT story would make a GREAT feature film, but the South Africans will exterminate Hollywood sooner than see it released.)

The script is shallow, the editing choppy and discontinuous. Contains multiple scenes of animal abuse and child neglect which would be OK if they had some bearing on the story, but they are written as if to offer some kind of bizarre comic relief.The characters lack depth and the photography is mediocre. The editing seemed to include scenes that could or should have been deleted for lack of contribution to the story. The sound track is also horrendous - after one rather depressing scene it cuts to a fast driving scene with upbeat music and the transistor is jarring to say the least. Avoid like the plague or you will walk away disappointed and disturbed.

This movie has it all & then some...Adultery, action, shoot-outs, screwed up families, a suicidal old man, a kinky soap star, humor, drugs, betrayal, murder and much more...all centered around a carefully constructed heist or at least thats what we're led to believe in this noir crime thriller called 2:22. All the cast do a great job with standout performances from Mick Rossi and Robert Miano; And the wonderfully weird character of a "Fence" as played by Val Kilmer. Also (SPOILER ALERT) a surprise cameo from actor Gabriel Byrne as a "Been there, seen it" veteran detective. I loved the overall look of 2:22, the winter backdrop was very effective and it's shot beautifully. The music rocks. I want the soundtrack. I caught this movie on my last night in Cannes, it nearly made me miss my train, but I didn't care, it was so worth it.