Well...there were scenes (and even individual lines) that didn't ever have a chance of working; there scenes (and lines) that should have worked, but didn't; there were scenes that shouldn't have worked, but did; and there were a scattering of scenes, setups and pieces of dialog that actually did work pretty well (although not as well as I imagine the director thought they would.)
I started out hating Eric Roberts' performance but ended up liking it by the end of the movie; I started out liking Tia Carrera's and Tony Curtis' performances but hated them by the end of the movie; I liked Joe Pantoliano pretty much all the way through; I didn't care about William Forsythe one way or another; and I pretty much wanted to punch Chris Rock's character in the mouth all the way through.
I'll give the movie credit for trying to give 10 characters (counting Tony Curtis' mob boss) balanced amounts of exposure and screen time, but most of the team-ups in the 2nd act don't add all that much interest - I could almost flawlessly predict what the characters in each time were going to say to each other and how they were going to interact. That's not a good thing,either given that this is already a genre gangster movie.
Given the overheated premise of the screenplay and the cats-in-a-laundry-bag interaction of the cast of characters and the indifferently staged gunfights and the character revelations that are supposed to make you gasp but you can actually see coming way before they arrive...given all those problems, I can't recommend this to anyone other than a die hard crime-drama fan who just wants to see tough guys snarl fatalistic noir dialog and shoot each other.
Of course, if that's what you want - enjoy!
I started out hating Eric Roberts' performance but ended up liking it by the end of the movie; I started out liking Tia Carrera's and Tony Curtis' performances but hated them by the end of the movie; I liked Joe Pantoliano pretty much all the way through; I didn't care about William Forsythe one way or another; and I pretty much wanted to punch Chris Rock's character in the mouth all the way through.
I'll give the movie credit for trying to give 10 characters (counting Tony Curtis' mob boss) balanced amounts of exposure and screen time, but most of the team-ups in the 2nd act don't add all that much interest - I could almost flawlessly predict what the characters in each time were going to say to each other and how they were going to interact. That's not a good thing,either given that this is already a genre gangster movie.
Given the overheated premise of the screenplay and the cats-in-a-laundry-bag interaction of the cast of characters and the indifferently staged gunfights and the character revelations that are supposed to make you gasp but you can actually see coming way before they arrive...given all those problems, I can't recommend this to anyone other than a die hard crime-drama fan who just wants to see tough guys snarl fatalistic noir dialog and shoot each other.
Of course, if that's what you want - enjoy!