Man...what a movie.
First off, I've been stoked about this movie since I first saw the trailer a few months ago, and the movie absolutely surpassed all of my expectations. If you think the trailer gives away too much or you think this movie is predictable, you're in for a big surprise.
I was first worried about the 2 and a half hour run time, I figured they would run out of story and stretch it out, but that wasn't the case...sort of. They kinda ran out of steam in the last 5 minutes, but the 30 minutes prior to that rectified it.
You already know the story (kids get captured, Jake Gyllenhaal is the cop, Hugh Jackman is the dad who flies off the rails, yada yada yada) so I won't recap it. Instead I want to talk about the performances because they were so tight. Then I'll move on to how I felt about the movie and whatever whatever.
Hugh Jackman: A+
Maaaaaaaaaan, he really broke the Wolverine mold on this one. I thought this was his best performance ever (a lot of people say Les Mis was his best performance but I had about 75289375323749 better things to do than watch that movie). He was so likable that you kinda forgave all the messed up things he did. But by the end of it, I was kinda like "either die or not be in the movie anymore" because your patience will wear thin. He went from super likable to "Can he not be in anymore scenes or something?"That's hard to accomplish as an actor but he did it to a tee. I was not a big fan of the movie making me not like him anymore, but that was a byproduct of it either being too long or bad writing.
Jake Gyllenhaal: A+
This is the best part of the movie. Jake is a pretty tight actor who I wanna slap 99.9% of the time, but when he plays a cop, he can do it better than anyone out there. Watch End of Watch if you don't believe me. He steals the show in this movie, which is kinda hard since Hugh Jackman gave his best performance ever. I didn't really get the whole tattoo thing with him, but that's neither here nor there. All I know is when the time came, he delivered. Personally I thought he could have a taaaaad bit of comic relief but this movie gave the Dikembe Mutombo finger wave to that.
Terrence Howard: A
Personally, his performance was more realistic than Hugh Jackmans'. Now, he didn't give his best performance (he won't ever top Hustle and Flow) but he did a good job of being the emotional counterpart to Hugh.
Viola Davis: A
Didn't get as big of a role as she deserved, and she deserves it, but she made effective use of her screen time. She did a very good job with Paul Dano as a defeated mother, but she kinda disappears towards the end of the movie and nobody really cares. Same with Terrence Howard. For a 2 and a half hour movie, a few stories were wrapped up way too quickly.
Paul Dano: A++
THIS GUY! You may know him as that douche muncher from Looper who I was hoping would die, but in this movie he was really good as a mentally challenged, soft spoken, sensitive psychopath. He made you feel sorry for him and he was effectively creepy at the same time. He's kind of creepy in real life so I feel like he didn't really have to audition for the role. At all.
Melissa Leo: A
She's a personal underground lowkey favorite of mine. Watch The Fighter and Red State and you'll see why. She just nails the "weird mom" role. I don't care if she's the same character in every movie, she's still pretty dope. And in this movie, she puts in a performance as good as the one in The Fighter, which earned her an Academy Award.
Any Kid In This Movie: F
You kinda don't care after a while. And whoever played the son...son.
Maria Bello: F
If you know me or have read my stuff before, she topped my Most Hated Actors list a year or so ago. Hate. Hate. Hate her.
On to the movie...
My only real complaint in such a fantastic movie was the lack of screen time for Viola Davis and too much screen time for Maria Bello. Also, Davis and Terrence Howard's storyline wraps up like it's no big deal. And then they're gone for the rest of the movie. This is your accomplice man, his daughter was kidnapped too but the movie was just like "YOU GON' WATCH HUGH JACKMAN AND JAKE GYLLENHAAL WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT" and forced us to accept that the family I didn't hate was done for the movie.
There were also a lot of cliches, like someone in these movies always has a past drinking problem and there's always a renegade cop who has never left a case unsolved and figures out mysteries through unconventional methods. Whatever.
Watch this movie, love this movie, maybe read the plot on Wikipedia afterwards because it gets kinda confusing. The 2 1/2 hour run time feels like 1 1/2 hours, although the last 5 minutes were kind of ehhhhhh. Oh and don't even get me started on that trash ending...
Final Score: 4.5/5
