I just saw Homicide for the first time and I was quite impressed. It is very much a Mamet film, film about men and their world, with a setting that fits a B film but a deeper message that reaches (and sometimes over reaches) for the stars. I often find my self thinking, why is this man, this talent picking this subject when he wants to make something profound and beautiful? But then you just can't take your eyes of the professionalism and you find your self being dragged into an ultra masculine world full of shallow and surprisingly deep meanings, side by side.
Homicide is one of his deeper films but it is impossible to talk about why it is good without revealing the end of the film, so SPOILERS! There are not many films about a detective who does not solve the case, who starts running in the wrong direction and looses him self on the way. That alone is praiseworthy. What is even rarer is to find a film that manages to make that mean something, give that a deeper meaning. I believe the film is quite postmodern. We can't look for the truth without taking some of our self into that search. Sometimes it just colors our conclusions but at other times it takes us into the wrong direction. Here is a hero looking for a self identity and he mixes that up into the case and gets the wrong answers. The word he was looking for had nothing to do with the case. It was just pigeon seeds. No conspiracy, nothing. Just like everyone told him, someone desperate looking for money. The scary thing is that we all do this, every single day of the year. When we listen to the news, when we justify our actions, when we help our friends. We filter what we hear and see through what we know and hold dear. What comes out is never the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It might resemble the truth, if we are lucky! END OF SPOILERS!!!
This film is not without faults. It feels like a stage play at times. You can feel that Mamet has not managed to lave the theatre behind even though the film is quite visual. The problem is the acting. It is not bad, it's just not film acting, if you get my drift.
Homicide is one of his deeper films but it is impossible to talk about why it is good without revealing the end of the film, so SPOILERS! There are not many films about a detective who does not solve the case, who starts running in the wrong direction and looses him self on the way. That alone is praiseworthy. What is even rarer is to find a film that manages to make that mean something, give that a deeper meaning. I believe the film is quite postmodern. We can't look for the truth without taking some of our self into that search. Sometimes it just colors our conclusions but at other times it takes us into the wrong direction. Here is a hero looking for a self identity and he mixes that up into the case and gets the wrong answers. The word he was looking for had nothing to do with the case. It was just pigeon seeds. No conspiracy, nothing. Just like everyone told him, someone desperate looking for money. The scary thing is that we all do this, every single day of the year. When we listen to the news, when we justify our actions, when we help our friends. We filter what we hear and see through what we know and hold dear. What comes out is never the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It might resemble the truth, if we are lucky! END OF SPOILERS!!!
This film is not without faults. It feels like a stage play at times. You can feel that Mamet has not managed to lave the theatre behind even though the film is quite visual. The problem is the acting. It is not bad, it's just not film acting, if you get my drift.