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When Long figures out what is going on and wants to bow
out, Brown convinces Karvan to keep him entertained and happy. When
Karvan starts sleeping with Long, and gets greedy and tries to
escalate the scan, the plot really thickens. Karvan, known for The Big
Steal, The Heartbreak Kid, Paperback Hero nailed the part, and
obviously enjoyed playing a bad girl. Brown was superb in the role. I
enjoyed it. |
| To tell you the
truth, I though the film was pretty good, but not exceptional:
On the plus side:
- the photography was stunning and
creative for a movie that basically took place in office buildings and
people's houses. It manages to make the city a character in the film,
dwarfing the characters with its size and complexity, yet
claustrophobically small in some ways, with tiny back alleys and
winding narrow streets.
- the performances were good
- the film starts out without letting
on that it's a film about scams. It seems to be a character-based
study of the insurance business, and you form an opinion about where
it is going. Therefore, it catches you off your guard when it starts
to go somewhere else. It does the same thing when you form an opinion
about who the patsy is.
On the negative side:
- there were a couple of things I
simply didn't understand. For example, why did the female lawyer take
the kid swimming in somebody's private pool and thus get him in
trouble? Just to goof on him? I didn't "get" that scene at all.
- I also don't understand why the two
main conspirators started having frank and illegal discussions in
front of the kid before they knew they could trust him. This led me to
believe that they were conning him by letting him think he was in on
the con, in order to use him later as a patsy. But based on later
events, that didn't seem to be the case.
- there were far too many
illustrations of his ability to adjust heart-rending cases. I think
there were five such cases shown in some detail, replete with
heartfelt speeches from the injured and aggrieved. This kept up long
after the point was made.
- there were some loose threads in an
uneconomically developed plot. The kid had a rival in the young
adjuster world who was moving up much faster. The plot introduced him
in a way that made him seem integral, then simply dropped him.
|
The
Critics Vote
|
The People
Vote ...
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| IMDb
guideline: 7.5 usually indicates a level of
excellence, about like three and a half stars
from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm
watchability, about like two and a half stars
from the critics. The fives are generally not
worthwhile unless they are really your kind of
material, about like two stars from the critics.
Films under five are generally awful even if you
like that kind of film, equivalent to about one
and a half stars from the critics or less,
depending on just how far below five the rating
is. My own
guideline: A means the movie is so good it
will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not
good enough to win you over if you hate the
genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an
open mind about this type of film. C means it will only
appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover
appeal. D means you'll hate it even if you
like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if
you love the genre. F means that the film is not only
unappealing across-the-board, but technically
inept as well.
Based on this
description, this film is a C+. (Scoop:
that may be right, but I think it's more like a C. Not a great
genre film, but a solid one.)
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