November movie reviews

What's with all the holiday crime dramas?


EASTERN PROMISES. Naomi Watts plays a midwife in a London hospital. A young woman comes into the hospital, gives birth to a little girl, and dies. She has no identification, and carries only a diary on her, written in Russian. Naomi becomes obsessed with finding the girl's family, so the baby can be with family and not end up in foster care. But it will turn out that the girl was involved with the Russian mafia, and the investigation will put Naomi at risk. Also starring Viggo Mortensen as one of the Russian henchmen. Although I guessed how this would end up, I really liked it, despite the violence. Seeing men fight for the lives in a steam room is a new one.


NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. Josh Brolin is out hunting in the Texas backcountry, when he comes upon a group of dead men. There is also a pickup truck full of of heroin, and a suitcase of money. Josh takes off with the money, but ends up pursued by both the sellers and the buyers of the drug deal gone bad. Javier Bardem is a sociopathic serial killer out to get him as well, along with anyone who stands in his way. Tommie Lee Jones is the sheriff who is trying to stop the bloodshed. He thinks he's seen it all, but it will turn out he hasn't. This movie is by the Coen brothers, and reminded me quite a lot of their movie FARGO. Same sick humor and level of violence. I think this is a terrific movie, but I know some people will be very put off by the ending.



AMERICAN GANGSTER. Denzel Washington stars as the drug dealing gangster, Frank Lewis, and Russell Crowe is the cop who is trying to bring him down. The movie follows their two lives in the late 60's and early 70's. Frank is a terrific businessman, who manages to cut the middle-men Mafia out of the drug deals by going to Southeast Asia, straight to the source. Because of this, he can sell better quality at a lesser price. But he is also smart about keeping a low profile, and so it takes the cops quite a while before they even figure out who the top dog is. This is a good cops and robbers movie, but critics are liking it more than I did. It's been compared to HEAT, but I liked HEAT better. It's a fine movie, but not great.


BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke star as brothers. The older brother is a slick character who can pretty much get his brother to do anything. Ethan is more of a screw-up, with a shrew ex-wife always bitching to him about his child support. When they both end up in need of cash, Philip comes up with the idea of robbing a family-owned jewelry store. No one is supposed to get hurt, but of course that doesn't happen. And things start spiraling out of control. The movie has an interesting structure, bouncing around in time. but I really couldn't care less about these people and their problems. Well done and great acting, but this is another one critics are loving, but me, not so much.