jmw111085

I've heard about this movie for many years but never brought myself to watch it. I've seen the Denzel Washington remake and although I liked it, it was not a great movie. I did not have high hopes for this movie, but because they are making so much crap these days I decided to give it a shot.

This was a very enjoyable movie, much better than the standard movies they make today. It was built on good acting, drama, pace, and direction. It did not need CGI or mindless, and now boring and trite, action scenes.

L. Harvey and Sinatra delivered good performances and the supporting cast was excellent. The only weakness or flaws were near the end, when real security would have intervened, thus prohibiting the climatic ending.

Edit update: I thought a little more about season 5 and I disliked it more. It was a worn and cliched move to present Hamm as a fundamentalist, right wing, bad guy. That trope has been used excessively and now it's tiring. Yeah, it plays well to a jaundiced audience but it makes for weak-sauce story telling. 5 stars because the quality of the story did not match the actor's efforts. The Coens are turning into hacks.

It's a shame that there were too many caricatures developed in season 5. That poor planning and story kept this season from being great. Of course it was a good and entertaining season but about halfway through it became obvious that using trite and worn caricatures shackled this season.

Jon Hamm deserves better than the low-grade character and role they gave him. I'm sure he got paid well.

Juno Temple was fantastic in her role. Wow, I hope to see her again in better roles and films.

Jennifer Jason Leigh was always pure pleasure to watch. The more I saw her in each episode the more I wanted to see her character in action. She's the consummate pro here. I wish someone would develop a series with her as the lead. Her and Juno were the outstanding stars of the show.

Sam Spruell was great in his role and his performance in the last episode was perfect. Such a pleasure to watch him deliver in restrained nuance.

Episode 7 was pure filler and made me disappointed in the producers. Really? They certainly could have done better than that for this story.

If they do another season I hope the executive producers eliminate the caricatures.

I liked season 2 better than season 1. There were enough plot twists to have stopped me from quickly solving the killings. Character development from season 1 was good.

I'm not sure if they'll do a season three but I hope they do.

One of the improvements was that they finally solved out the "car" phobia Amanda had. That was really needed.

The other area of improvement I would like to see is for them to tailor out the lesbo story line. It's just a cheap PC, unneeded distraction.

One weakness this time is that the story writers used family members as part of the tension. That's so worn out and trite now.

Overall a good job.