A Murder of Crows

I rented this movie having never heard of it or Rowdy Herrington. I became an instant fan. The film is very good and so is the script. I admit to having figured it out but that was part of the fun. It's not a huge film starring Michael Douglas and budgeted by Warners but so often one rents a film that looks promising and it's simply awful. This was quite good and probably should have gotten more attention at the time it was released (if it indeed was released to theaters, which it should have been).

This film has a fabulous plot and great acting but it was filmed, scored, and cinemagraphed very poorly. Mr. Gooding is wonderful, as always and Mark Pellegrino is truly a great actor who has been greatly ignored and under-appreciated in the film industry, (though I am sure the stage adores him). This movie could have been so much more. It must not have had a large budget, because the scenes lacked the sense of suspense and drama that is achieved with good scoring and cinematography, but the acting was spectacular, especially the climatic scene with Mark near the end. Even a better musical score could have added a lot to the film. I also think the narration did little to support the plot, it took the drama and suspense from the film and made it seem a lot less serious. The plot is very dark but the film seemed to have lost that. I enjoyed this film nonetheless for its fine acting and marvelous screenplay.

1st watched 4/27/2002 - 7 out of 10(Dir-Rowdy Herrington): Effective murder mystery with many convoluted plot-twists that are almost too much to believe, but good performances by Gooding, Berenger, and even Eric Stolz, in a somewhat minor role as far as the plot, does a good job. Without giving too much away this is basically about a lawyer who gets disbard for doing the right thing(turning in his guilty client) and then publishes a novel, which he really didn't write, about a lawyer-murderer and then is accused of the actual crimes that were mimicked from the book. That is quite enough in itself, but the story involved even more than that and is told at times from Cuba's characters perspective(which means of course that he isn't dead when it's over, but that‘s okay he‘s the star). The ending seemed a little too long and it worked too hard to make it happy for the viewer but besides that this was a well-done picture that is carried by the stars involved.

There seems to be a lot of negativity in the comments for this film. I thought it was pretty decent. Yes, voice-over narration is often a crutch, but it did not annoy me here. Cuba Gooding played it well even though his character was a little bit too good at evading the police. Tom Berenger was also just fine as a New Orleans police detective. Marianne Jean-Baptiste played all of the right notes as well. I guess I don't spend much time while watching movies trying to guess what is coming, or foretelling the ending. It seems that many people do. To each his own, I suppose. Nice scenery in both New Orleans and Key West. This never seems to have made it into theaters, but it is a nice diversion.

This is one of those gimmicky plotted,elegantly produced movies that can be fun to watch if you go with the flow and don't dwell too much on the implausibilities.

Cuba Gooding is a lawyer who has a fit of conscientiousness and promptly gets disbarred. He travels to Key West and becomes friends with a retired Englishman who gives him the manuscript of a novel and asks for an opinion. The Englishman is found dead. Gooding decides to publish the novel as his own and then the fun begins.

Gooding has an engaging personality but his acting leaves something to be desired, his name is on the credits as producer (which in Hollywood can either mean a lot or nothing at all) so we would assume that he had read the script, but it doesn't always seem that way. He sometimes seems to be acting from off stage cues with his mannerisms at variance with the mood of the scene. In one scene, for no reason at all, he looks down at floor then shuffles his feet to another position as though he has just been told he is standing in the wrong spot.

The plot takes some not always credible twists and turns and we get that hackneyed scene where for no plausible reason the protagonist makes a run for it. In this case Gooding makes a surprisingly easy escape from a house swarming with cops, then of course we get the chance to visit some nicely photographed locations and to meet some quirky characters.

Tom Berenger does best in the acting department as a surly cop. He also has some of the best lines. He refuses a drink at one point with a terse "I never drink. It makes me feel happy."

Mainly for Berenger's performance and some nifty locations I give it 7 out of 10.