Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Don't Believe the Hype

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This movie had such potential, but it turned out to be just another bore hole. I will never understand where directors and producers think moving forward and backward through time is a good idea. The acting was sub par, the story line was much worse. The movie felt hurried and left the audience with more questions than answers. All in all, I see why the movie grossed 37,000.00There were bad guys and worse guys in the movie, but we learned nothing from them. All we know is that someone wanted a phone returned but the true reason is never revealed. Why the director thought this was a good idea will forever baffle this movie buff.

This seemed like the kind of film that I would enjoy. It is a simple plot, but one that has tremendous potential. I am a fan of the real- time, wild chase, "mad minute" films. I really wanted to like this film. However, this film failed mightily and where it failed was in the script (or lack of one) and some absolutely horrible acting. As I watched some of the scenes, especially the painful scenes when they are at the family get-together, I was cringing. Everything seemed ad libbed, and very poorly so. The lead actress was terrible, her mannerisms and expressions were comical. I felt like I was watching a high school play. All of the female actresses were terrible (especially the mother). Then I later find out that there was no script in this film! Not a great idea for a motion picture. Moreover, the film really starts to lose its way very early. Kind of like the writer said "I got a great idea" and furiously writes down the opening scene on a piece of paper, but then completely runs out of steam. This film turns boring fast and we are taken off into various boring sub-plots that do nothing for the film. I guess in the end, I have been spoiled by watching films that are well acted and well scripted, this is not one of those types of films.

I'll write about the positive and negative aspects of this movie.One positive thing about this movie is the camera work. It is done in decent lighting and really shows the atmosphere that it tries to create. The acting is convincing and not over-acted.The movie is incredibly cliché and shows a huge lack in originality and it also tries to send a political message. Two Europeans in America are chased by a Chinese man with a gun. These Europeans in this movie have feelings and are real persons. The Chinese man is just a criminal without any personality in this movie. Just a plain murderer.This movie still gets a 1 out of 10 for the camera work. It doesn't get a higher score, because it's a very racist movie.

It isn't easy to admit that only a movie's charm has won you over, but that seems the case here. I got lost along the way, but derived some much pleasure from the many qualities of this film that I'm certain I'll want to see it again It deserves the attention because perhaps it was my length of tooth (a film devotee for almost eight decades) that got me offtrack. Anyway, the parallel story lines (if that's what they indeed are) threw me a curve-ball. So offtrack did I get that I was adamantly wanting to know why the hell Joseph Gordon-Leavitt and his yellow tee were so inseparable. Suffice it to say that this day in the lives of Gordon-Leavitt and his charismatic and talented girlfriend here, Lynn Collins, is worth spending with them. The simple but interwoven plots have the young and in love couple spending idyllic time with her family for part of the day, and finding more adventure than they bargained for in downtown Manhattan, where our hero finds a cellphone at the scene of a fatal shooting that unwinds before the couple's and our eyes. That they find a stray dog, take it in, and care for it, suggests warmly that we're sharing time with good people. The cellphone, it turns out, belongs to a shady character who will pay a king's ransom to get it back. Therein lies the key to a coin flip on the Brooklyn Bridge. Not one to always need endings ironed out neatly, I was more than satisfied to see these two young, likable people agree to adjust to what lie before them, A hardly minor occurrence, too, on this day, is that she announces her pregnancy. As a couple, this pair is magical. Finding out they ad-libbed dialogue was intriguing here. Unlike others who commented negatively, I thought their input natural and articulate. I'll take the blame for my confusion out of the director's hands. That he merits, for having gotten so much so entertainingly on the mark.