2006 Feast of BloodRating: 12/20
Plot: A bookie gets killed. Then another bookie gets killed. A gambler gets killed. The gambler's wife gets killed. Then a horse gets killed. Then a couple black characters get killed. Then a couple Jewish characters get killed. The audience sort of wishes that Lucy Liu gets killed. Then a whole bunch of other people get killed. Then the movie reminds us of how clever it is. Credits!
This is the sort of movie that can distract you with blood, style, and more blood into thinking it's a much better movie than it actually is. It's pretty slick, pretty cool, and ultimately pretty empty. Like the Bourne movies, Snatch, Pulp Fiction, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and Big Top Pee Wee, this movie is probably just a little too cool for me. It's fast and glossy; has far too many undeveloped, flat characters (basically, they're cool); and cleverly-written dialogue that gives each of those undeveloped characters a chance to show off how nonchalantly witty they can be. Pulpy and with enough twists and turns to give me vertigo, this was fine for what it is--heavily and artificially buttered fodder. It's the kind of movie that stands in the corner with sunglasses and winks at all the ladies while not realizing those ladies can't see behind the lenses so he then surreptitiously walks to the bathroom, sits on the toilet, and bites his lower lip until it bleeds and says, "Ah, the hell with 'em. They ain't my type anyways."
Note...this movie: 
came out at roughly the same time, won a whole bunch of awards and was critically acclaimed. Lucky Number Slevin is at least as good even though it has what has to be one of the worst titles in movie history.
Here I am trying to look cool enough to simultaneously watch this movie and be married to somebody much better looking than me...she didn't watch this movie, by the way:
i liked the departed. i refused to see slevin cos it was called slevin
ReplyDeleteI may have been bothered by the amount of attention 'Departed' was getting...skewed me. I looked it up in my little book and see that I actually gave it a 13. Slevin, therefore, would have been a 13 if not for the penalty for "Slevin"...
ReplyDeleteI was distracted by the cool. Maybe I'm cool? No, nobody who wonders that is cool. I loved "Pulp Fiction" and "Snatch" and though this movie is not in their league, I was very entertained. It was fun, like all ultra-violent films should be. Tell the truth, you're the lip-biting, sunglasses guy, huh? A 16.
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