Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

hyped garbage

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Amazing cast, acting, screenplay. If you Love 50s style police dramas, this is for you. In the style of Philip Marlowe. Don't miss this classic.

Set in the early nineteen fifties this film follows the 'Hat Squad'; four LAPD detectives willing to do whatever it takes, including murder, to rid the City of Angels of organised crime. Then one day they are called in when a woman's body is found outside the city; she is half buried and just about every bone is broken as if she was pushed off a cliff but there are none around. She is Alison Pond who we soon learn was involved with Detective Lieutenant Maxwell Hoover, the leader of the squad. Not long after they start investigating somebody sends in a reel of film which shows Alison and a man in a compromising position. He is soon identified as a general in charge of the US Atomic Energy Commission. He has an alibi for the time she died but as pressure from above is applied to Hoover and his squad it looks as though Alison was killed because she saw something she wasn't meant to; what that is remains a mystery though.I really enjoyed this film; it provided an interesting mystery and great atmosphere. As others have said it doesn't just feel like a film set in the fifties, it feels almost like a film made them. The cast does a great job; Nick Nolte is on top form as Hoover and Chazz Palminteri, Michael Madsen and Chris Penn impress as the other members of the Hat Squad. There are also solid performances from Jennifer Connelly and Melanie Griffith and Alison and Hoover's wife Katherine. The story unfolds at a good pace and while the identity of the killer isn't a total surprise and the mystery of how Alison came to die seemed pretty obvious it didn't really matter as the big question as to why she was killed wasn't obvious at all. At the end things do get a bit melodramatic but that goes with the genre. There are some fairly violent scenes and some fairly tame sex scenes; I was surprised that it was given a UK-18 certificate though... unless there was something I missed I suspect it would be given a 15 if it were rated today. Overall I'd certainly recommend this to fans of neo-noir films; the story of good and the atmosphere is great.

"Mulholland Falls" (1996) is not a bad film. The performances are more than adequate, the attention to period detail and the cinematography is breathtaking at times. The problem lies with the screenplay, and the editing (it seems that MGM saw fit to trim the original cut of the film down to a more acceptable running time), leaving much to be desired with character development (or lack thereof) and plot holes.The opening sequence is pure noir, or neo-noir as the genre that it falls into. "The Hat Squad" in which Max Hoover (Nick Nolte) is the leader is both comical and interesting. Unfortunately, the other characters (Chazz Palminteri, and particularly Michael Madsen and Chris Penn) are give little to do by comparison. And although Jennifer Connelly is featured prominently in the trailer and on the DVD cover, she also has very little do but look gorgeous and sexy (which she does very well) in a series of all too brief flashbacks and 8mm footage. Melanie Griffith, as Hoover's wronged wife, makes the most of her limited screen time but again, the film could have benefited from seeing more of her (and I say this as someone who is not particularly a fan, but she is extremely sympathetic and likable here). Andrew McCarthy gets the thankless role as the friend of Allison Pond (Connelly) who knows too much. John Malkovich seems to think he's in another movie, Treat Williams tries hard but never fully convinces as a military man. Blink and you'll miss Rob Lowe in a cameo and William Peterson is uncredited.The main problem with "Mulholland Falls" is that it does feel like two movies slapped together. The military/government angle felt very out of place; what started off as a promising detective story dealing with the murder of a young woman who has connections to both the police force and the corrupt underworld of Los Angeles turns into a bland maze of incoherent and uninteresting plot points.Some may argue that this attempt at neo-noir is unjustly compared to "Chinatown" (1974) and "L.A. Confidential" (1997), but it does fall short. As I mentioned before, perhaps the editing is to blame. It would be interesting if a director's cut exists. Perhaps that would make more sense out of the plot.Dave Grusin's score is nice enough, but only briefly evokes the feeling associated with the genre.In conclusion, "Mulholland Falls" is not a waste of time, it was an interesting premise that simply ran out of steam. Still, if you're an admirer of period pieces or films set in Los Angeles, you may want to give it a try.

The name of this movie comes from a place in the movie where the good guys throw the bad guys off of a cliff to let them know that they are not welcome in Los Angeles. This movie is set at about the same time as LA Confidential (in fact probably a little after World War II, considering the plot) and at this time the police rule the city and the criminals are being driven out by simple brute force.This movie is more of a murder mystery than anything else. A dead girl is found in an indent in a quarry and it seems that she has fallen from a great height. The thing that makes this death important is that the girl is a cop's mistress (Hoover - played by Nick Nolte) and he wants to find out why she died. As he searches he comes to find out that the girl's neighbour taped her with her men and has taped something that somebody doesn't like, as he lands up very dead.There isn't anything too deep in this movie. It seems to be that Hoover is trying to come to terms with the death of his mistress, and even though he had dropped her a while back, he still seems to feel responsible for it, so he is determined to get to the bottom of it. The bottom involves the military and some testing of atomic bombs, but it is something that J. Edgar Hoover is supporting. What is going on doesn't seem to be that much of a conspiracy (though if the effects of radiation got out then bad things would happen - but we already know about it now).This movie seems to be more of a character study of Hoover than anything else. This is a guy who loves his wife dearly, but also fell in love with another woman, had an affair with her, and then broke it off when he realised that it was not the right thing to do. Even then he still has strong feelings for her and is torn between his love for her and his loyalty to his wife. He does love his wife, and his wife is what matters, so when the bad guys give the film to his wife as a threat, it is simply a threat that has been carried through meaning that they no longer have any hold over him. The ending also reveals this aspect of the movie as it is not him catching the bad guys (which he does) but rather it is him trying to reconcile with his wife, and the movie leaves us hanging - she walks off. It is not a typical Hollywood ending where he is forgiven and they get back together - she simply walks off leaving him to deal with his betrayal of her.Now I come to think of it, it is the deep characterisation and the struggle that Hoover feels within himself that makes this movie stand out from the rest of Hollywood garbage. It is one that does not have a conclusive ending and also attacks the idealistic feel of the fifties.