Film Review: Leaves Of Grass

Leaves of Grass is quite an interesting film, one of the obvious reasons is because Edward Norton plays two people.

The film stars Edward Norton as a pair of twin brothers. One brother Bill is an Ivy League philosophy professor, while the other brother Brady is a Oklahoma pot dealer. After Brady is part of a drug scheme gone wrong, he decides to lure Bill to Oklahoma to take part of his scheme, the problem is that Brady had to fake his death in order to get Bill to come back to Oklahoma. Upon arrival, Bill is already confused many of the town people think he is Brady. Bill gets knocked out and wakes up to find that Brade is still alive.

After Brady explains why Bill is here, Bill isn't necessarily happy with his plans, but he uses this as an opportunity to reconnect with his family which he hasn't seen in years. One of them is finding a love interest (Keri Russell).

This film is pitch as a comedy-thriller. While some of the content would easily filed under black comedy, I wouldn't call it a thriller. As far as comedy goes, this movie is pretty funny. The cast is good, while Norton is great as usual, the highlight of the films has to go to Richard Dreyfuss as the king of the drug trade in Oklahoma.

My only complaint is that Tim Blake Nelson's directing is a little uneven. While it isn't a "good" comedy, there is plenty of parts that were quite interesting. Leaves of Grass is still worth your time.

Overall Grade: B

Film Review: Brooklyn's Finest

Brooklyn's Finest is the latest entry to the trend of gritty cop films, sadly, this one is a giant cop movie cliche. This was directed by Antoine Fuqua, who directed one of the good recent cop flicks Training Day. You can tell that Fuqua is trying hard to replicate Training Day in this one.

The film focus on 3 different cops. The first one being played by Don Cheadle, as a cop who's been working undercover for the last few years, because of this, his private life hasn't been the same. He is trying to get out of the undercover game.

The second cop played by Ethan Hawke, who is a family man with 2 more kids along the way. Hawke is trying to save money to move out of his moldy apartment to raise a family in an actual house. With his recent cases of trail and tribulation, he decides to start stealing money from gang drug busts in order to get the new house.

The third cop is played by Richard Gere, who has been on the force for 22 years and is about to retire in a week. No one on the force likes him, since he is a coward. He is also suicidal and loves a certain hooker.

The three stories interwine barely and the plot is nothing we've never seen before. The film is also more than two hours, I was checking the time alot. I can't really buy Cheadle acting like a thug, if I was a gangster, I would've easily been able to tell he is an undercover cop. Hawke seems like he is trying and Gere seems bored.

Another reason this film is getting some attention is because of the return of Wesley Snipes, his role is pretty small and his performance wasn't bad, didn't really stand out. I was hoping his performance would be similar to New Jack City, not even.

Overall, the actors seems to try to do work with such a cliche piece of shit. Don't waste your time.

Overall Grade: C-

Film Review: The Crazies

The Crazies is another entry along the recent trends of horror movie remakes. Unlike the majority of these flicks, this one doesn't suck.

Along with this and the remake of Dawn Of The Dead, it seems thaat remaking a George A. Romero flick with possibly lead to a good remake (except for Night Of The Living Dead and Day Of The Dead).

The plot is pretty straight-forward, people in a small town start acting weird and become "zombies" and start killing people. Timothy Olyphant (who actually doesn't suck in this) and his wife (Radha Mitchell) are trying to survive and also slowly discover what's going on.

Once you get to what is going on within the first 30 minutes, the audience are hoping that these characters survive. While this film isn't breaking any new grounds, it's still entertaining.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with this one.

Overall Grade: B

Film Review: Cop Out

Cop Out is a departure from Kevin Smith, it's the first film he directed without taking credit for writing it. Sadly to say, this is a complete miss for Smith.

Cop Out is basically a "homage" to the 80's buddy cop flicks like Beverly Hills Cop and 48 Hrs.

Willis and Morgan are partners who just got suspended, Willis needed the work to pay for his daughter's wedding. He decides to sell an old baseball card, but it gets stolen. This stolen card leads to the drug underworld, and it's up to Willis and Morgan making amends without their badges.

Morgan is playing the same character Morgan always plays, I didn't buy him being a cop. Willis just seems bored in this. The couple of chuckles I got from the movie was from Seann William Scott.

Make sure you skip this one.

Overall Grade: D-

Film Review: Shutter Island

Shutter Island is latest flick for Martin Scorsese, probably one of his most ambitious film so far in his interesting career. I was really looking forward to this since I tend to find 80's Scorsese a tad underrated, and this film reminds me of the ambitious projects he did during that period. While it isn't a bad movie, it sure isn't good up to Scorsese's standards.

The film stars Leonardo Dicaprio delivering another one of his funny accents, "federal MARshall". He plays Teddy, a federal marshall who goes to Shutter Island with his partner (Mark Ruffalo). They both are invistigating the dissapearance of mental patient Rachel Solondo. Upon arrival, things are already starting to look sketchy, as Teddy is trying to find answers, the staff is keeping a tight lip (this is the point where I already knew where this was going, I hope you do too).

During this investigation, Teddy gets "migrains" and starts having flashbacks of his dead wife and kids and memories of his time during WWII. I found all the flashback stuff very interesting, as some of the images were quite surreal.

Here's the good, the film starts off good, and Scorsese can obviously direct (questioning his direction is pretty stupid at this point).

The bad, the story is insaaaaaaaanely predictable, I predicted the ending right when the trailer came out. The story is very similar to Sam Fuller's "Shock Corridor", and the ending pretty much identical.

Overall, Shutter Island starts off good, but it's dull and predictable ending knocked it down several points.

Overall Grade: C+