Starring Hugh Grant (When he was a star) and Gene Hackman (Who always is one), and with good, solid supporting performances, this is a feature-length Morality Play. Where it goes is fine, but the ending seems to choose a side…perhaps the correct side, perhaps the side you agree with (perhaps not), but a side nonetheless. It therefore loses its power as a work of art to be “puzzled over” and becomes a good movie with a nice message. Needless to say, that’s a bit of a let-down.
Grant plays a doctor (Guy Luthan) who has to make a choice, in the beginning of the movie, between helping a cop whose wife is at the hospital crying and a psycho on drugs that shot said cop before being shot himself. The decision seems obvious, as does Luthan’s father’s background, as foreshadowing the eventual conclusion. Luthan is conflicted from the start, but you (at least, I) never really get the sense that the internal struggle will end up going anywhere but where it does go.
So what’s left? I mean, if a thriller has a fairly predictable ending, how thrilling can it be?
Well, it’s not particularly thrilling. But it is well-crafted, well-executed, well-acted, and so forth.
The questions raised in this movie could have been made more challenging by a more objective approach…most people will probably agree with the final “decision”, and it probably won’t take that much thought to reach that agreement. The extra sugar-coating in the epilogue doesn’t help matters much, either.
All that aside, if you can suspend assumption for a while, this is a very enjoyable movie. Nothing special, nothing revelatory…it will disturb you, yes, but it won’t particularly surprise you, I don’t think. Sort of like an Agatha Christie novel in which the killer is given away on page 10.
Inspirational Quote: “Anything.”
Grade: B-
2012: Grade: B