Okay, okay. It's hard to begin this, especially after seeing so many praises for this film. I'm just going to be completely honest. I finished seeing the movie about fifteen minutes ago, so the best time to write this is now. First of all this is not an all-out action film, so if you were expecting that, you will be disappointed. Now, aside from that, I thought this was an AVERAGE movie that could have been A LOT better. I thought this was going to head down a very good road in plenty of instances, but when I noticed that it was already an hour in, I was wondering what could POSSIBLY happen now. Mortensen is a great actor. I'll give him that. Harris is a classic actor. This film has plenty of good acting, enough to make us believe the characters and who they are and what they are going through. I liked Harris' character and the only one I felt for was Mortensen's. He gets ridiculous reactions from his family. I mean, he is protecting them, but he gets bashed at because of who he is/was. The man made a drastic change, and that is not even appreciated by the ones he loves. I would explain further, but I do not want to spoil this. The fact that this is more psychological and about how people fight so hard with themselves is very good and well-done here. Mortensen's character has mental wars and inner struggles, and I like the way that is done. The films are shot stupendously, and if the story worked out great too, this could have been a masterpiece and up in my top five films of the year. But now we must go to the reason why I graded this a bit lower than everyone else. There should have been a little more explanation and background to this movie. I mean, after about an hour and fifteen minutes in, I just didn't care any more about what happened. Things happened and I started to wonder where this was going. It's really hard to explain, but I didn't feel any history to the main character's violence. There should have been a little more of that--a little more mental struggle. Then we could have felt for him more. There should have been more story for the violent side that this man once had. The last ten minutes were too blah for me, and I just shook my head. It happened so quickly and there was almost no point for it. A lot of different things could have occurred. But alas, I will stop there now. It is really hard to put into words the reasons why I thought this movie was only average. It could have really been a classic film. I'm sure though that a lot of you will enjoy it for what it is =)
6.3/10 Stars
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