Undescribable Perfection

That was an excellent one.

Blistering performances.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Whilst there is nothing deep and meaningful here the plot and characters are plausible. The pace is about right as is the mix between humour and action. Thus Leaves of Grass is excellent entertainment (which is what movies are for) and a movie which I felt came close to nearly having it all(plot, comedy, acting and direction) in just the right doses: with one notable exception... the ending. Whilst often the hardest part to write in any story the ending here was neither necessary nor plausible. A prof of Classic's just wouldn't end up trying to hawk his dead brothers grow operation in order to tie up all the loose ends. So whilst it brings the film to a close, it's a bad close that lets down what up to then was pretty plausible. If it were up to me I would just cut the whole crossbow bit out and let the audience go home five minutes earlier and with a far better impression of the movie as a whole.

Leaves of Grass is a small film by Tim Blake Nelson which is about a twin brother Bill (Ed Norton) who is a professor at Brown Univeristy, and Brady a marijuana dealer in Oklahoma. It starts out with Bill getting a surprising call telling him that his Brady was killed. This then leads to Bill going down to Oklahoma to pay his homage and find out more answers. However he is unaware that it was a prank made by Brady to convince him in going down to visit him. Along the way they both start to get along, and we see the chemistry with the characters.The film was not what I expected. It starts out as a somewhat light hearted comedy than changes towards a drama then a more crime flick (around an hour way through the film). The tone of the film changes once the first killing happens (Brady kills Pug along with his two men). The deaths came from left field however I felt it was necessary to push the story. Another subplot which randomly kicks in is the orthodontist from Bill's plane ride finds his way down to Oklahoma and has his encounters with Bill, Brady and their friends. We first see him as a fast talking manic, then he suddenly changes into a psycho as he ends up 'accidentally' killing Brady with the shotgun.Leaves of Grass is very well acted which elevates the film as a whole. Great directing and the scenery is wonderful. The film is more described as a dark comedy and it fits its description well.

It's easy for hacks to say they don't like something if they give no real reasons as to why. Read any of the bad reviews for this film and you'll see what i mean. What more could you want from a an indie dark comedy? It had brilliant performances by both the cinematographer and the cast, all of which were extremely under payed judging by the budget of this film. A spectacularly rich and funny script, and completely original approach to the regional indie. It boasted the Oklahoma landscape without saturating the viewer like a tourism piece and it featured all the right naughty stuff audiences love as far as violence and drugs are concerned. Sure it was a little slow at some points but for those of you who don't remember people had to make films using there minds and original ideas at one point in time without relying on CGI and 3D to make a good film. This movie is not only a throw back to what movies use to be, and artful expression, but subtly uses CGI technology in the proper application; as little as humanly possible. Check it out it's really a great movie and ed Norton will simply blow your mind once again.

In spite of Edward Norton's overworked OK accent, he's a good enough actor to create two distinct characters-twins, one an ivy-league prof, the other a successful Okie pot grower. Everybody else rises to the occasion as well; even the script is good- it's the story that's the problem. If it's a comedy, it should stay a comedy IMHO, but this story, instead of developing a comedic premise into something that resolves in a comic fashion, depends on violent death to do that. So in its second half the story goes from building up a potentially hilarious situation into resolution by hollow-point ammunition. Much as did The Departed: Everybody shoots everybody else. The writer/director/actor, Tim Blake Nelson, got it off to a believable start, then seems to have thrown up his hands whenever the going got tricky, and just wiped out the troublesome characters. Deus ex machina lives, in the form of high-powered weaponry. I gave it a 5 because the acting (Edward Norton, T.B. Nelson, Keri Russell, Susan Sarandon) is first-rate. But the tone is completely inconsistent. I'm supposed to laugh at people getting their brains blown out? Maybe Nelson is trying to make a statement about "How we settle things down here in Oklahoma", or in The South, or in America? I don't know. It looks to me as if he just ran out of ideas.