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blademan60527
Reviews
The Ghost Writer (2010)
Lefty Hokum
Wildly contrived lefty hokum more suited to the Nixon Watergate era than the present radical single party left wing rule, with its activist judges and unelected czars ruling by fiat and decree with Bizarro World runamock political correctness, and tome sized largely unread socialist legislation rammed through as law with questionable constitutional authority and predominantly against the public will, that we are currently in the grip of today. Which makes this film's paranoid premise seem as whacked out implausibly anachoronistic, and as disconnected from reality as a remake of a truly effective political thriller such as Three Days of the Condor (whose left leaning sensibility seemed right for its time), would be if done up today. Only set in Scarlett O'Hara's ante bellum South as a minstrel show this time in the kaleidoscopic art deco style of the late Busby Berkeley.
So, an all together laughably implausible Hitchcock rip off, down to the soundtrack which sounds very much like a nearly note for note copy-write infringement upon North By Northwest, with an ending especially, that should not have been released without a laugh track.
The Molly Maguires (1970)
An overlooked gem
This film is a real sleeper. Great cast, well acted, beautifully written, scored, and photographed. There are scenes in it, particularly between Harris and Connery, that are among the best acted by either of these two gentlemen. And if you are a fan of either? You will be seeing them in a fine yet overlooked gem of a film. While in their prime. And doing some of the very best work of their careers. Connery, in a part light-years from James Bond, plays the ultimately doomed Jack Keogh with an understated eloquence and quiet nobility. While Harris as the Detective James McParland, and infiltrator of the Mollies, plays his part with an amiable flair that at first wins us over just as he wins the affection and trust of the men and women he eventually betrays so that in the end, we are let down and made to feel the coldness of his Judas act just as if he has betrayed us as well.