The Gingerbread Man

The promising first half-hour is let down by the failure to develop the characters and thus waste a great cast. Downey Jnr is a fantastic actor but is given very little to work with, same goes for Hannah, Berenger and Janssen (who seems to have no purpose in the film whatsoever). Davidtz would've been great if her character had grown, but instead all she got to do was mope around for the whole movie. Majority of the bog-standard material here is given to Branagh, and although he is by no means poor, he just does not get the viewer involved in his battle.

The direction, for me, was the film's only virtue. Altman creates a wonderfully dark and intriguing atmosphere, it's just a shame neither the story nor the undercooked characters are equally dark and intriguing.

With more complex characters, more of Downey Jnr and Jansenn, and more explosive dialogue, I could've easily overlooked and forgiven the silly plot turns and contrivances, but sadly they stick out like a sore thumb.

Disappointing sub-noir thriller. 4/10

I expected more of Kenneth Branagh. It is a decent movie, on the low side of watchable. I prefer my suspense movies not to be predictable from the outset, which this was! We saw it for two reasons--Branagh and John Grisham. My final opinion was that Grisham wanted to try his hand at writing a screenplay, and he had the clout to get it produced. I hope his next screenplay will benefit from his first errors, as his subsequent novels have gotten better as his experience as an author grows.

The plot of this film was only bad in the last section of the film. Before that it builds up to something good that never comes. I had to learn a Southern accent for a play (being from Kentucky and not having a Southern accent of course) so I rented this movie and learned one. Kudos to Kenneth Branagh and Robert Downey Jr. Watching this film it seemed like there was about 45 minutes worth of plot missing that would have made this a good movie. IF you have the missing 45 minutes please send it to me.

I give it a solid 7. The acting was good and the story was good, to a point. Some of the actions of the criminal did not make sense, but I guess there are a lot of real criminals in prison that also ran a little short in that area . I can say the same thing for the lawyer. One minute he is brilliant and the next he does not know what is going on. Real people many times do the same. Fact is stranger than fiction. As an arm chair director I think this movie could have been better. Its worth watching.

It takes real talent to make a real lemon, and Robert Altman, a most talented director, has succeeded brilliantly here. He made things difficult for himself miscasting Kenneth Branagh as a boozy Savannah lawyer but the attempt to replicate the feel of a town in the grip of a hurricane really finishes things off. The last 20 minutes in the rain is truly appalling, with the audience reduced to guessing about what is going on. The lighting is awful throughout, the more so that it was done on purpose. Maybe we were supposed to experience the confusion of the lead character as he stumbled towards an answer but this does not make for entertainment. In this film noir genre to achieve tension at crucial moments the audience must know just a little more than the protagonist, not a lot less.

The story, though completely derivative, is actually quite tight, well plotted, and has a convincing resolution, but the lack of light and general confusion make it difficult to follow. Anyway, an absolute shocker, gross waste of talent and apparently a box office flop (there's some justice). Altman has since put this turkey behind him with the luminous Gosford Park but I am left wondering why on earth he did it.