Reviews

I so love the screenplay, cinematography & performances in McDonagh's film. I had seen two of his plays years ago, one off & one on-Broadway. The script has echoes of the clipped, witty phrases of his "Cripple of Inishman" with a bit of "Waiting for Godot" (McDonagh is a major admirer of Beckett) ... And the photography, sigh--easy to expect great, sprawling vistas of Achill Island & Inishmore (the West Coast of Ireland, where my grandparents were raised, is awash with rough waves, steep cliffs, treeless plains)- but Ben Davis uses them as background without milking it. It's the interiors, the painterly use of natural light-the soft whites & golds through windows, a la Vermeer, and the splashes of candlelight on faces against dark brown, earthen walls, the chiaroscuro bringing out the isolation and well worn visages of characters looking for meaning in their existence. But with all this seriousness, there is also humor, the music of Colin Farrell's exasperation, the charm of animals always in the house... Such a quiet, wonderful film.

We have become huge fans of L&O UK through DVD--we have seen 8 episodes so far and we're very eager for additional seasons to be released in the NTSC format (right now, subsequent seasons are only on PAL). Even though I live in NYC, the outer boroughs are often treated as second class citizens by our cable companies and we do not have access to BBC America, where the series is shown stateside. The rapport and dialogue between the detectives is realistic and entertaining, and it has been a treat to watch the British court system at work (we had to look up the rules/options re: wigs/robes) and are curious that some statements permitted by the attorneys would surely have earned sustained objections in our courts (of course, this is also TV's stretch) The gritty camera-work and neighborhood locations are effective, the adaptations of US episodes have worked beautifully and the acting across the board has been fine. More DVD's please!

As a New Yorker who remembers that day all too vividly, I am reminded of Spielberg's approach to "Schindler's List", using the little girl in the red coat to humanize the incomprehensible masses in the tragedy of the holocaust; we can really only absorb one story at a time to even begin to understand large scale loss of life. In this film, Stone accomplishes the impossible by concentrating on two men and their families--instead of trying to portray the full scale of 2,800 lives lost and a city/country changed forever. By avoiding the obvious (only briefly alluding to a shadow of a plane, never showing the complete collapse from the outside) and concentrating on the points of view of the men inside the tower, Stone enables viewers to fully understand the confusion and fear of those on the front lines.The politics of 9/11 can be left for another film and Stone, rightfully, does not explore the causes or subsequent results of that moment in time. Some critics have unfairly emphasized that there is no sustained tension or suspense because we know the outcome. Well, we knew the outcome of "All the President's Men"--and virtually every Shakespeare play/film--and the impact on the viewer does not suffer when the direction, script, editing and acting are of such a stellar quality. There are many more stories to be told of 9/11, but few will match the humanity, detail, and spirit of this exemplary film.

I was surprised to note that the film was released in 2004; it has a very "1960's" European feel in look and soundtrack. None of the supposedly US characters looks or sounds American; the hairstyles and clothes, again, are very retro and much of the dialog appears to have been looped--without the appropriate background noise! None of this would matter if the conflicts or characters were involving--but the action is very formulaic and the acting poor.It certainly is difficult to come up with new approaches to disaster-type scenarios on limited budgets, but "China Syndrome" and countless earthquake films have already been done. As the Bible--and Spielberg in his Oscar acceptance speech--said: "In the beginning was the word..." With or without a significant budget, there first needs to be decent script, and this one just doesn't work. If the creators of Mystery Theater 3000 were still doing their magic, this film would be a perfect candidate for parody.