I didn’t know what to expect from this one. The previews were intriguing, but people are paid to make them just that. I liked Brick and think Joseph Gordon-Levitt is solid. Jeff Daniels is solid. Isla Fisher is sexy, but can’t hold up a movie. Scott Frank is new to all this directing stuff. I get into heist movies. There are a lot of factors. Turns out it’s a mediocre movie that I ended up liking. Who knew?
The story centers on Chris Pratt (Gordon-Levitt). He’s the shit in high school and everyone wants to be him or do him. He goes all risky for a second and drives his car into a wreck. Fade to black, cut, caption, and it’s four years later. Now he’s dealing with the aftermath: a brain injury that makes day to day routine difficult and a family that pushes him to be as he was. He works at a bank as the night janitor and lives with a blind fellow he met through the counseling (Daniels).
Enter a new set of friends, Gary (Goode), Luvlee (Fisher), and some other shady cats. They pump him up, telling him he’s better than others see him, and treat him as an equal. Or, he thinks they do, because he becomes aware that they are just using him in order to scope the bank he works for. Surprise.
It’s slow going for a good chunk, but it feels like it’s intentional. It doesn’t hurt it all that much. We see the repetition and strain that comes with all of Pratt’s issues. The characters are decent, but the Daniels and Gordon-Levitt are the only ones that hold any acting cred. The directing is safe, but it works well with the story. The third act is filled with action. Predictable, but entertaining none the less.
It’s as though the action is secondary. Like Frank wanted to go deeper. He does, but I doubt to the level he thinks he does. The movie’s more about a man’s struggle to regain normalcy after a tragic event. Pratt goes through his day constantly thinking of what things were like before. He visits the place he was thrown from his car many times through the film. His family acts as though nothing happened almost to the point of patronizing him. It depicts him fighting this isolation and takes you through his transition into partially accepting it.
…or maybe I read into it a little too far.
** 1/2
Tags: download