Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

If you liked Snatch, you'll likely enjoy this. I certainly did. It's a nice piece of ensemble acting and a pleasant little puzzle of a movie, all the bits fitting slowly together. I loved particularly how they rock and rolla looks like a stereotype at first, but as slowly illuminated in the source of the story so that one sees through the stereotype into some very cool depths.

I know there's rather a lot of controversy around the use of "poof" in this film, but it seems pretty fair use given context and for the most part I'm okay with the portrayal of the more important of the gay characters. My caveat is, I am not cool with the depiction of the gay dance club, which I felt was played for laughs in a mock the queers sort of way. this is a tiny part of the film, and I don't feel like it's enough of a complauint to prevent one seeing the film, but it may irritate people.

To sum up, it's a smart, face paced little thing with solid ensemble acting, and enough underlieing meat to chew on after. It's not high art, but it delivers on both tthe action and the characterization. I would have liked a better handle on motivation for a couple of characters, but given the size of the cast, I'm not sure how they could have squeezed it in and they mostly made up for it with the quality of acting which gave a sense that the back stories were their even if we didn't see them.

I do have one question though; "What in the world were those Russians doing in that one scene?" O.o