What a disappointing movie this was. Scattered, no real storyline or characters to grow attached to (with one exception), boring, plodding, this movie was a doozy. How it got the critical acclaim that it's received is beyond me, but honestly 10 minutes into the movie I wanted to leave, but no, I had obligated myself to train wreck, so I sat and watched, and was in a p-o'd daze for a good long amount of time.
Here are some fundamental problems with the flick: 1) the context for what's going on is either not there or it's provided at the end, so while you're watching the scenes you have no clue what's going on--the movie ends and there are a few story lines where I'm still baffled why it was even included and occupied 25-30 minutes of the movie's screen time; 2) the end of the movie has 5 factoids of what you'd want to know about the mob in Italy trying to add a rationale for watching the last 2.5 hours (that felt like 4.5 hours), and that's just lame, have it at the beginning, but don't just be like: here's a reason for spending your time on this; 3) it doesn't succeed as a drama because you don't know motive or have characters with depth (the exception being a 14 year old boy and an old man who distributes checks, both those characters worked for me), and it doesn't succeed as an action/thriller, because there's no suspense or action; 4) I was bored.
Here are some fundamental problems with the flick: 1) the context for what's going on is either not there or it's provided at the end, so while you're watching the scenes you have no clue what's going on--the movie ends and there are a few story lines where I'm still baffled why it was even included and occupied 25-30 minutes of the movie's screen time; 2) the end of the movie has 5 factoids of what you'd want to know about the mob in Italy trying to add a rationale for watching the last 2.5 hours (that felt like 4.5 hours), and that's just lame, have it at the beginning, but don't just be like: here's a reason for spending your time on this; 3) it doesn't succeed as a drama because you don't know motive or have characters with depth (the exception being a 14 year old boy and an old man who distributes checks, both those characters worked for me), and it doesn't succeed as an action/thriller, because there's no suspense or action; 4) I was bored.