So as I was about to post this review, I noticed on the trivia page notes on exactly what went wrong with this film, cause something did go terribly wrong on this one, terribly wrong.
The movie felt like one or two different movies, intertwined together really badly. The whole thing was all over the place with no real focus.
It's really sad because the acting in the movie was really good and I love how the filmmakers placed the movie in the Inwood section of Manhattan. I recognize the area and it made the movie feel so real. Like with the characters going naturally back and forth from Spanish to English, it fells like Dominican New York. Not only that, but the cinematography and the sound design really helps to put you right there on the streets. From the sounds of the buses and cars going by to parts where it was cloudy and raining. I really felt I was on those streets and not in a theater.
Plus Big Daddy Kane makes a rare acting appearance. How can this movie not be solid gold?
Well apparently it was not enough for the studios to have Keenu Reeves on the poster to sell tickets, they had to re-edit the movie to make sure he was more the star of the pic, and this puts everything off, because you still realize that Reeves' role as a detective trying to solve his crooked partner's murder is a small piece of a movie about a a young devoted catholic living with her husband's family while he's overseas, trying to wrap her head around deeply distributing issues that are triggered by her own connection to the this cop's murder.
So I herd that there is a director's cut of the movie. If that cut every comes to light, I would want to see what the filmmaker really was trying to do, but do not waste your time seeing this cut.
The movie felt like one or two different movies, intertwined together really badly. The whole thing was all over the place with no real focus.
It's really sad because the acting in the movie was really good and I love how the filmmakers placed the movie in the Inwood section of Manhattan. I recognize the area and it made the movie feel so real. Like with the characters going naturally back and forth from Spanish to English, it fells like Dominican New York. Not only that, but the cinematography and the sound design really helps to put you right there on the streets. From the sounds of the buses and cars going by to parts where it was cloudy and raining. I really felt I was on those streets and not in a theater.
Plus Big Daddy Kane makes a rare acting appearance. How can this movie not be solid gold?
Well apparently it was not enough for the studios to have Keenu Reeves on the poster to sell tickets, they had to re-edit the movie to make sure he was more the star of the pic, and this puts everything off, because you still realize that Reeves' role as a detective trying to solve his crooked partner's murder is a small piece of a movie about a a young devoted catholic living with her husband's family while he's overseas, trying to wrap her head around deeply distributing issues that are triggered by her own connection to the this cop's murder.
So I herd that there is a director's cut of the movie. If that cut every comes to light, I would want to see what the filmmaker really was trying to do, but do not waste your time seeing this cut.