Just perfect...

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Brendan Fraser should avoid playing the bad guy. Maybe avoid drama altogether and still to comedies, animated movies and children's movies. His portrayal of a badass villain is so bad it's laughable - you'd think it was a parody of a villain. His performance is so bad it goes past good and back to bad again.However, Fraser does not single-handedly ruin the movie, though his performance was capable of doing that. The plot is wafer-thin too. Tries too hard to be gritty and instead ends up a random, gratuitous- violence filled mess. Just seems to drift along haphazardly with no point at all.Mos Def's performance is one of the few positive aspects of the movie. Quite convincing.Scott Glenn is pretty solid in his role too.Other plus is that the movie is reasonably short...

I find it _extremely difficult to watch a movie or TV program filmed in false color.The 'sepia' tint of 'journey to the end of the night' _immediately convinced me I wasn't interested in the plot. When I walk out into my backyard every morning I see 'roy g. biv' colors provided by the Sun and expect to see those same natural colors in everything I view.I think its a toss-up between CSI and the 'Matrix' movies for the advent of 'green' tinted filming which apparently provided the 'idea' for the red-shifted 'sepia' distraction in 'journey'.It doesn't matter which filters directors and film editors use, its _still not real.Raise your hand if you wondered why CSI's in Las Vegas walked out of _broad daylight into a house (crime scene) and _immediately turned on their _ever available hand-held flashlights rather than turn on the lights in a room ,or even _better, raise the shades.Trying to set 'mood' with false color and 'shading' should have criminal charges attached.

"Journey to the End of the Night" defies any instant classification. It touches on many genres and plays more like an amalgamation of films. The effect is wonderful and stirring and by the end of the movie you feel like you've been on an emotional roll-coaster. The plot is plain. Brendan Fraser is in love with his father's wife. He wants to run away with her and start over in a new country. Brendan has no respect for the old man because he is essentially a pimp -- (Scot Glen owns a nightclub where girls sell themselves). One night a man is "offed" in the club and leaves behind a bounty of drugs. Scot Glen and Brendan decide to sell the drugs rather than hand it over to the cops -- (Scot Glen has his own designs about starting over and getting out of the business). They enlist the help of one of their lowly employees (Mos Def) whom they know very little about. Only that he is Nigerian and that he can speak the same language of their buyer. Mos Def embarks on his mission which takes on a heroic, almost mythic resonance in one of the most humanistic, gentle roles I have ever observed. He progress is derailed by random violence which leaves him without his cell phone to call Scot Glen and Brendan Fraser (who now believe that Mos Def has absconded with the cash).Scot Glen in an act of desperation visits an old Fortune Teller to try to enlist his powers in finding Mos Def. Brendan Fraser begins to panic because his plan on getting away is beginning to unravel.Mos Def is rescued, as it were, by a beautiful young maiden (Alice Braga) who--because of a fight with her boyfriend--is lost in the world with no where to go.Mos Def and Alice team up for a heartbreaking and tragic passage back to the city. We see that despite some affinities there love is not to be. Meanwhile, back at the club Brendan Fraser stews over the missing drug mule, and begins to melt down. He confronts his father in brilliant "actorly" moment that redeems his character. We find through classic monologue why he is the way he is (And Fraser does some of his greatest work in this scene).The ending of "Journey to the End of the Night" borders on the fantastical and is wildly ambitious. Perhaps overly so and perhaps not entirely convincing. But no less great. The film is chocked filled with energy and passion, bloodshed, car chases, shoot outs, and moments of supreme gentleness. Not for the squeamish. This film is going to become a cult classic.

Journey to the End of the Night has a wonderful cast and an interesting premise. From that starting point, however, its all downhill. The film collapses into such a morass of cliché, confusion, and violence that it leaves you wondering why you bothered to take the journey with it. Set in Sao Paulo, the film is (I guess) striving for a tone of gritty realism. Mos Def is, quite honestly, superb in his portrayal of a Nigerian immigrant drawn abruptly into a world of corruption. He is the only real winner in this sorry affair - the sky is the limit for this wonderfully talented actor. Catalina Sandino Moreno and Alice Braga also do not discredit themselves, but they are playing for a losing team. The film dissolves in a mish-mash of stock characterizations and improbable plot turns. "Good" bad girls, corrupt cops, drug deals gone bad - we've seen this all before, but here there is not enough internal logic to make us believe in any of it. Ultimately, in the film's violent, climactic scene, the cliché-level becomes so high that the sounds of laughter you hear are from people laughing at the film, not with it. Sorry to say, but Journey to the End of the Night is not a journey worth taking.