3 for some of the performances...
Steve Kuehl | Ben Lomond, CA | 11/03/2008
(3 out of 5 stars)
"I know this kid (Webber) has had a hell of a life and his performances are definitely worth watching. This film has been horribly mislabeled and advertised so I am hoping it gets a fair shake on DVD just to showcase his performance.
First and foremost, I have customers asking about this because they want to see Paxton and/or Drea De Matteo films; they are front billed on this and Webber gets buried on second tier. To be clear - Paxton has 3 minutes and De Matteo has 2 minutes and 6 lines. Zooey has a supporting role but the writing makes it to where her role is (supposedly) important (with a twist in the end) but falls well short of meeting reality. The story of a young adult living a tough inner-city life making ends meet is covered adequately in the writing, and the lengths shown to facilitate his worthiness are noble, but in the end count on it becoming tedious.
I love the whole premise of a classic movie theater being run by the time challenged curator (played by Stanton) and the foreshadowing of the end of our story being played in the first scene - but once you see how this all plays together it leaves more questions than answers and believability goes right out the window. I know I get in trouble whenever I pan a ZD film, but this film cannot hold together above a 3 star reference - I would highly recommend it just to see Webber's thorough performance and Klein showing a much darker (and misplaced for the film) character.
Ignore the whole DVD cover (front and back - "He's finally had enough" - whatever; "Phenomenal" - not really) and rent this to watch some young performers fill some vacant roles."
Interesting characters, uninteresting story.
Robin King | Fort Dodge, Iowa | 05/08/2009
(2 out of 5 stars)
"If your looking for a good story, action or suspense skip this movie. But if you like to see quirky characters played by exellent actors well maybe. Everything about this movie was good,except the story. Being a fan of more suspense or action or even stronger characters I would watch something else."