Rupert Wyatt’s (Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Star Trek 3) The Gambler is a movie that should have done better both with critics and at the box office. Accruing just $33 million domestically and a 46% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, this movie deserved a better fate. Sure it has its flaws, but 98% of all movies do. One factor against The Gambler was that it wasn’t striking the right audience. The first preview of this movie was a quick 30-second throwaway commercial during a ball game. I do not recall seeing a more extended trailer for this movie in the theater. When I did see the television commercial, it made it seem like it was a shoot ’em up action flick. That’s not what it was at all. I’ll say that this was one of Mark Wahlberg’s (Lone Survivor, The Perfect Storm) finest performances to date. I know Wahlberg is hit or miss with many people, but the man has talent. He has proven he can successfully do drama (The Fighter, Three Kings, Rock Star), crime (The Departed, Four Brothers), comedy (The Other Guys, Date Night), and action (Shooter, The Italian Job, and a host of others). Wahlberg can play a good guy as well as he can a bad guy. But rarely does he play a vulnerable character or a character that doesn’t look like an all-star for a least a good chunk of the movie. Without revealing too much, I will say that this is one of Wahlberg’s most insecure and vulnerable characters. It’s also a role he doesn’t overplay, which, I think, would have been very easy to do. While I didn’t love everything about this movie, I certainly liked it. I would recommend it to all Wahlberg fans or fans looking for a light drama, light crime movie that you don’t have to overthink or take too seriously to enjoy.
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Category Archives: Crime
The Drop (2014)
In my review of Enough Said, I write that the performance of Albert by James Gandolfini was the perfect role for his final movie. Albert was such a likable character in that movie. There were no hidden agendas. The man had some flaws, but those flaws weren’t any worse than the flaws you or I have. I wrote that review when I believed Enough Said was Gandolfini’s final movie before he passed away. I still love his role in this movie, but I’m so glad there was still a movie in post-production that I did not know about. The Drop was a fantastic final film for him, and it could earn him a posthumous Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nomination. In this film, Gandolfini returns to what he is most known for as an actor. He’s a little shady, and there always seems to be more about him than meets the eye. With that sly smile of his eyes, his under-the-breath chuckle, and his ability to say something to one person that is so very endearing one minute, but something to another character that is so brutally honest that it makes the person who is speaking feel stupid the next, Gandolfini is a master of disguising his characters and their intentions. He may have turned in the best big screen performance of his career with his final one.
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Lawless (2012)
Tom Hardy (The Dark Knight Rises, Warrior) is quickly establishing himself as a leading man in Hollywood. Since really coming onto the radar after 2010’s Inception, Hardy went on to win audiences over in the surprisingly good Warrior before donning a mask as Bane and becoming 2012 biggest villain in The Dark Knight Rises. In a movie full of top-notch acting, Hardy turns in the performance of his young career in John Hillcoat’s (The Road, The Proposition) Lawless.
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Narc (2002)
Jason Patric can play a police detective as well as anyone can. Patric would have been excellent on a show like The Shield. Seeing Patric in a reoccurring role and watching him delve deeper and deeper into his character, regardless of which direction that character might have gone, would have been something special. But Patrick has always been, and probably always will be, a silver-screen performer. He is undoubtedly not an A-lister, and his role has become few and far between. But, outside of Speed 2: Cruise Control, he always brings his A-game. For Patric, that involves grit, determination, and a deep understanding of the character he will be portraying. In my opinion, Patric was born to play the roles of undercover detectives, police officers, narcs, etc. He’s got the look. He understands the lingo. He’s scuzzy enough to pull it off but can invoke just the right amount of sympathy for viewers to believe in him and know that he’s one of the “good guys.”
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What Doesn’t Kill You (2008)
According to the website www.boxofficemojo.com, the Mark Ruffalo/Ethan Hawke crime drama earned just $44,872 in the theaters. Even if both its two lead stars plus the talented Amanda Peet (Identity, The Whole Nine Yards) agreed to work for free, this movie still did not come close to earning back what it cost to produce. Usually, when you’ve never heard of a film, especially one in which both its lead stars have each been nominated for an Academy Award before you see it on DVD, it’s because the movie stunk. Most of those involved with the film would rather it go unnoticed. This is probably accurate 90% of the time. What Doesn’t Kill You falls into that other 10%. The story isn’t new. We’ve seen the same story played out hundreds of times on the screen (including even a couple of movies involving Ethan Hawke that fall along those lines). There was nothing that particularly stood out in terms of the plot. Sure, the fact that it was based on a true story strengthens its cause. But still, the old man involved with crime and drugs, trying to turn around his life for his family, but struggling to do so is nothing new. So how does this movie break through that threshold and be one of those movies you remember? It was the acting.
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