Great Film overall

Fantastic!

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

I normally bypass anything featuring Cuba Gooding Jr. Maybe I'm still scarred from Pearl Harbor (the movie, I don't claim to have been at the attack). However, I gave this one a chance based on the Netflix user rating (4 stars at the time). I was extremely surprised by the quality of the film. The plot is rather weak, but the talent presenting it is excellent. I had no issues with Cuba Gooding Jr. Keitel provided the least from a performance perspective, but he was good enough not to ruin it for the rest of the cast. There are clichés and logic failures throughout, but I was never bored. I'm glad this movie got made, and I'm glad I got to watch it.

I watched plenty of movies this week and out of them, I think this is the best of the bunch.The setup was good and it followed through rather nicely.The story flowed well and there was not an over use of hard language or violence where there didn't need to be.Of all the gangster movies I watched, this is one of the better ones.What I really liked was that the film didn't take place in New York, Chicago, L.A. or Miami.It also takes place in winter and not everybody lives in the largest of homes or has the latest fashions or has poor vocabulary skills.The entire structure is nicely constructed and is a worthwhile viewing.The Scorpion and the Frog story made total sense and brought back some memories of someone who used to tell me that same story - and in this movie, it made total sense.Nice job to all.

This is a movie that begins by spoiling the movie and then going back in time like so many movies have done before. There are so many movie clichés in this flick you could make a drinking game out if it. The characters' actions do not make any sense and neither does the ending. If I hear the scorpion crossing the river story in another movie, I am going to freak out. It is up there with "We are the same.. you and I!" The dialog is really badly written, and the characters' motivations get jumbled up so often, the characters make no sense. This supposedly HUGE powerful crime boss brings a small timer into his home (why?), gets insulted and then just lets him leave (why?). Then kills the small timer's wife and then remains at that very house. Then has next to no protection on his home, a house he showed him how to get to. Characters bust out knives when it is convenient for the plot. This generic hole filled plot was really bad and the action scenes were pretty generic too. People casually chatting back and forth while gunfighting, senseless character actions, implausible circumstances over and over again. I tend to turn my brain off for action movies, but this one was beyond brain dead. It was like the script was written by a 12 year old with no editing. Many scenes had a "come on, that is ridiculous" moment. If it was cheesy and campy, it may have come off, but this movie took itself seriously.

I'm not a big fan of Cuba's but he was believable in his role. Miguel Ferrer certainly commanded attention and, in my opinion, was a better overall performance, but Cuba pulled off his character well -a loyal, hardened, right-hand man to Miguel "Vincent".While it is more of a typical gangster style flick, it does offer something a little different; which is what I think makes this movie work.I would recommend this movie on a rainy day or if someone asked about it, but I wouldn't call someone to tell them to go pick it up... Possibly good enough for the big screen, but certainly not a let down for DVD.