From my favorite movies..

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

This is the perfect example of how "Hollywood" works. This movie was unique and very entertaining but, the film-maker and production studio has a falling out so, they buried it and paid critics to pan it. Don't ever go by Rotten/Fresh Tomatoes or you'll miss out on creative gems like this one. Or, you'll get stuck wasting hours on boring, played out garbage like The Hateful Eight or The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

So this director is the ultimate one trick pony/one hit wonder. But it's a damn fine motion picture. The plot pulls you in, the characters are strange but extremely like-able and the violence is not only graphic but very creative. This movie is all kinds of awesome but the sequel sucks and the director hasn't made anything else worth watching. Thankfully the cast didn't suffer the same fate. The writer/director clearly threw together every good idea and element of a great movie that he had into this flick which makes it stand out but it seems that he only had enough good content for one movie

Quite a good watch. Had never heard of it until a couple days ago - on a Screen Junkies video - and since it was being praised and Willem Dafoe, I decided to give it try. Dafoe is exactly the best part of it. Over the top, funny and really full-on crazy, his character carries the whole film not letting it turn boring and stale. Another fresh idea are the flashbacks. I wasn't expecting they'd choose this route to illustrate the most of the action scenes and it surely delivers. It's very interesting to look at the crime scene and at the same time as the cops, try to find out what happened. Unlike what I've seen written about this specific part of the film, it's not like it gets too much repetitive since as Smecker is closer to finding out who are "The Saints" he too gets incorporated in this action scenes, in quite spectacular fashion. The rest of the cast, specially Reedus, Flanery and the first-timer Della Rocco also make for interesting performances, despite not at the same level. The film is visceral, "balls to the wall" and certainly feels fresh, with some inventive camera work and choreography. The action scenes felt gripping and somewhat intense.Recommended

I don't get how I came across this movie so late?! Its just brilliant! The way it plays out, the story, the editing! And the soundtrack. Oh, the music that accompanies DeFoe's scenes! The acting done by the two leads is brilliant, Norman of course made it big in TWD much later with Flannery getting some recognition in Dexter. But damn. William DeFoe . He stole the bloody movie. Whether it was his narration of the scenes, his constant ragging of the one inspector, which was just LOL, or his climax scenes. Yes you know the one. Brilliant movie. The style, the cutting, the pacing of this movie. They really made them different back in the day. By different I mean better. Perfect movie for a night with take out.