When I bought my ticket for this film, the nice (though, it turns out, stupid) lady at the box office tried to talk me out of it.\u00a0 In fact most people I know, except for one heavily medicated individual, were down on this movie.\u00a0 After sitting through the film, I have concluded 2 things:<\/p>\n
1) Drugs work & 2) People are stupid.<\/p>\n
The film is adapted from a 70’s crime novel called Cogan’s Trade.\u00a0 <\/em>I read it some time ago during my ‘hard boiled’ phase.\u00a0 The novel is interesting in that it takes no sides on who might be the hero or villain.\u00a0 There’s just varying levels of competency and luck that decide who lives and dies.\u00a0<\/p>\n Anyway, the basic plot is a card game is robbed which disrupts the local criminal economy since illegal gambling is ‘protected’ by supposedly omnicient crime lords and nobody will operate if they think they’ll get robbed.\u00a0 So the mob brings in an enforcer to find\/kill the robbers and restore the local criminal economy.<\/p>\n What the film does that I found ingenious is while updating the story to the year 2008; they turned the Payback <\/em>like story into an alegory to the current financial crisis.\u00a0 The criminal economy breaks down because of a lack of regulation and the powers that be are hesitant to take the steps to strengthen it because they are unsure how popular they will be.\u00a0<\/p>\n It’s more intricate than that, but the enforcer knows what needs to be done and spends most of his time convincing the pussies in charge what to do (there’s more of a corporate feel to the mob these days than in times of yore).<\/p>\n Brad Pitt plays a less cuddly version of Rusty from Ocean’s 11.\u00a0 <\/em>He doesn’t do anything you haven’t seen him do before; but that’s really what the part calls for.\u00a0 It would have been easy to over do it.\u00a0 And he delivers one of the best pro America rants ever.\u00a0 (Whether or not it was pro America probably rests on one’s personal preferences as to what they want in life; but even if it horrifies you it clearly packs a punch)<\/p>\n James Gandolfini is absolutely hilarious.\u00a0 One quote,”Your anus is not a God-damn national monument!”<\/p>\n So, box office lady, shut up.<\/p>\n Easily worth seeing in the theater.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I bought my ticket for this film, the nice (though, it turns out, stupid) lady at the box office tried to talk me out of it.\u00a0 In fact most people I know, except for one heavily medicated individual, were … Continue reading