Too much of everything

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

best movie i've ever seen.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

It opens with four or five guys silently having a game of poker in a big office. A revolver sits in the middle of the table. The guy with the lowest hand must pick up the pistol, spin the cylinder, cock the pistol, hold it against the back of his hand and pull the trigger, hoping the hammer falls on an empty chamber.In the same room, Philip Seymour Hoffman sits slyly behind a big desk, quietly threatening a whore who has tried to run away again and been caught.An Asian man with a bloodied face is shackled to the radiator. He has his ribs kicked in by a humiliated youth who has bragged about his Glock and its silencer. The Asian is brought into another room where he is told his testicles will be removed with a pair of pruning shears but he has his brains blown out before this horror can descend on him.Well, I like Stanley Tucci, Robbie Coltrane, and Philip Seymour Hoffman a lot. I think they're terribly underrated and underused. Well, not Hoffman, but his parts are limited because he looks semi-ordinary, not at all like Cary Grant.On the other hand, I've had about enough torture porn and imitations of Quentin Tarantino. I couldn't sit through more than a few minutes of it before I knew with some certainty what to expect. Sorry. I found it revolting.

It seems nobody could make a crime movie between 1994 and 2000 without being accused of copying Quentin Tarantino. Granted, his movies are great, but scoffing at any movie that has an ensemble cast of decent actors in a story that involves guns and money is just robbing yourself of entertainment. I admit there are a lot of copycat movies out there and some are really crappy, but you have to judge each one on it's own merit. I consider Montana and Things to do in Denver when you're dead to be two great exceptions. They're just too damn fun to watch for me to be so critical of them. Maybe that's just me though. I try to find things that mean something to me in every movie I watch.I love Tarantino as much as the next guy, but how can you not enjoy Kyra Sedgewick beating and shooting people. You just don't see that everyday.

Some movies are dragged down by weak performances, some weak movies are elevated by outstanding acting. This has a little of both pushing in each direction, with the director a little too eager to emulate Tarantino's ghoulish style. Stanley Tucci really puts in a fine performance as a highly intelligent, anal and laconic hit-man. But he's in the movie too little to really save it. Robbie Coltrane is utterly wasted as the mob boss, all he gets to do is growl a little and swill bourbon. Kyra Sedgewick does her best, but can't quite bring off the hard bitten hit woman (Kathleen Turner succeeded in Prizzi's Honor). She just seems out of place, watching her with a gun is like seeing a person who doesn't smoke trying to hold a cigarette--just looks awkward. In one scene she's digging a very large grave with a pile of dirt almost as big as herself. You can tell, though she's in very good shape, she's never used a shovel in her life and she looks remarkably silly. The vast quantities of blood that sprays and puddles everywhere gets boring very quickly--as if the director just bought stock in a fake blood corporation and figured to give it some business. Ultimately, not much happens in the movie, there's some blather about a conspiracy to topple the mob boss and missing money, but hardly worth the effort. The humor, such as it is, doesn't quite come off, and the "dishonor among thieves" theme is hardly a revelation. If stupid bloodshed, peppered with weak black humor, rent this -- it's a great example of beating to death a genre that wasn't that strong to begin with.

I'm shocked my fellow IMDBers gave this a 6.8/10. This is close to the worst movie of the year. Kyra Sedgewick tries to save it as a mob hit lady with some forceful acting, but she just seems mostly angry and in a rush to get through the scenes. I like mob movies, but this can't touch even a simple one like Donnie Brasco. It plods along, the violence is silly, the acting looks like some buds tried making their own movie in their living room, and everyone looks like they're waiting to be cued for their lines. The mob boss is a clumsy old joke. Among the worst 5 movies of the year.