Touches You

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Best movie ever!

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

After reviewing the comments found here, I find myself wondering if the film I've seen four or five times could possibly be the same one described in several of the reviews here. "Thinly disguised agendas, unrealistic plot lines, uncertain performances." I don't understand the issues here.Traveller is a fine movie, worthy of much wider exposure than it ever received. The performances by Paxton, Marguiles and Wahlberg are all top notch, and rate among the finest work I've seen any of the three produce. James Gammon's performance is a tremendous character piece and even those who don't like "Traveller" should watch that with spellbound interest. (Ebert's Stanton-Walsh rule should apply here.) The script could use a little tightening in places it's true. And I will agree that I would have liked to see more of the back woods life, but that's a selfish interest and not something that was integral to the success of the film. We see that old home life in every shade of Paxton's performance. He carries it with him constantly, only letting go of it in brief moments with Marguiles.Wahlberg's performance is described elsewhere as "uncertain." In my mind, that's the point. Pat is uncertain. That's the performance. That's the character. That's acting. He never knows where he stands. He rarely if ever knows what he wants, let alone what he'll be able to possess.This movie tries to be a lot of things. And it succeeds in most. It is a road movie, a romance, a con, a story of failed redemption and more. It's a North Carolinian mafia movie. Sure it's not "The Godfather." But it ain't "Mobsters" either.

This was totally interesting to watch, but it needed two things: (1) to be based in some kind of reality; (2) to have a conclusion for the characters. In the picture, you see Marky Mark getting into a romance with the daughter of the capo di capos, but absolutely nothing comes of it. And what happens to Bill Paxton's girlfriend. And even the scheme for the counterfeit bills, which should have been crystal clear, did not hold together.And who are these people? I get the feeling that the filmmakers were trying not to call them gypsies or roma--fear of offending an ethnic group. Rather, they seemed to be some combination of Irish and Italian. But the movie would make more sense if it were clearly grounded in a real group of people.But, that said, I still enjoyed every minute of it. It just ended too soon.

This could have been an interesting movie but it didn't live up to its promise. For one, the "traveller" culture of itinerant Irish grifters is explored very sketchily, if at all. The violent climax seems like an import from a totally different kind of movie. The only really entertaining scam was the one that Bokky and Pat pull on Jean, the bartender Bokky ends up falling for. The rest were either so simple as to be dull (the phony sealant, the trailers) or so complex you couldn't follow them (the scam involving the Turks). There are much better movies about con men; "House of Games" is probably my favorite.The acting alone makes "Traveller" worth watching. Bill Paxton is very good as Bokky, a likeable rogue with a sincere face and an awakening conscience, and he credibly conveys his growing love for Jean; his anguish when he has unwittingly put her in grave danger is palpably and painfully real. Julianne Margulies brings warmth and spunk to her potrayal of Jean, and the romantic chemistry between her and Paxton is undeniable. Mark Wahlberg, in one of his first "real" roles, projects just the right mix of boyish vulnerability, charm (in the scenes where he's romancing Kate, the clan boss's daughter), and cool-dude moxie. As the old grifter "Double D," James Gammon is a lot of fun to watch whenever he's onscreen.Unfortunately, the screenplay doesn't do enough to develop the two main characters. For instance, Bokky seems to have a good heart; yet he's been conning people for years (not even siphoning some extra cash from rich people for whom it's merely a drop in the bucket, but cheating poor and ignorant folk -- in some cases, cheating them out of their life's savings), and somehow it never bothered him until he met Jean. That doesn't make much sense. As for Pat, I think the film should have told us more about his life "on the outside." We gather that he's poor and doesn't have too many opportunities (though he's dressed nicely enough when he arrives for his father's burial), but it's still hard to understand exactly why he's so eager to be a part of the "family" and to join a lifestyle in which his choices, even about things as basic as whom to marry, will be severely restricted, or why he thinks it's so terrible that Bokky risks being excommunicated from the Travellers. (Bokky's on-the-road life certainly doesn't look like being "on top of the world" to me.) Pat's relationship with Kate is treated as an afterthought, maybe a plot device to give him a reason to come back to the Travellers camp.Because of these flaws, the character development that could have been the strongest part of this movie never really gels. The shaky plot structure, especially toward the end, compounds the problems.

A band of irish gypsies take advantage of decent people as well as running a scam on a trio of other con artists. This picture seemed to be applauding stealing, whoredom, and loose morals in front of children, plus it contained a jab at handguns which appeared to be thrown in as an afterthought. Subtle, but not to well hidden subliminals, pushed the agenda of the producer in a thinly disguised movie. An ok film.