Nightmare Alley

Great cinematography, acting, and well built story. A bit slow and somehow predictable, however worth it the time and the story and characters stay with you after leaving the theater.

I liked Nightmare Alley at first. It's visually gorgeous and pulls you in with its ambience and bits of mystery. But at a certain point, where what I'd call the "second act" begins, I looked to see how much was left of the movie, thinking it was about the time in a noir when things really get going like a runaway freight train, and realized it was only half over!

I felt pretty restless at that point, in spite of Cate Blanchett's pitch-perfect performance. It wasn't so much that less time should have been used up in the first act as that every single thing should have been shorter. This should have had the brisk quality of classic noir, instead of the slow boil noir here.

The movie does finally go into runaway freight train mode almost two hours in, and that last part is intense and gripping and everything you'd want it to be, but really this whole movie should have been 90-100 minutes and a good finale doesn't erase the boredom I'd felt for most of the previous hour.

Del Toro's a terrific director, the movie looks amazing, and Blanchett is phenomenal, so I won't say skip it. I will say, lower your expectations and don't count on something worthy of the best picture Oscar nomination this got.

Bradley Cooper stars in Guillermo del Toro's remake of this story about an impoverished drifter who happens upon a carnival geek show. From there, he learns various magic tricks and creates an act of illusion that he takes to the city. Thereafter, he encounters more than he anticipated. Rooney Mara is his love interest and fellow circus performer, Willem Dafoe is lively and animated as the amoral carnival owner and Cate Blanchett is a mysterious psychiatrist with whom Cooper's protagonist crosses paths. Richard Jenkins is excellent as a rich tycoon with an immoral past.

Cooper gives a multi-dimensional performance that helps carry the film and he gets plenty of help; this film noir boasts a formidable acting lineup, stunning period detail and is handsomely shot, however its overall impact is greatly dulled by a running time that is way too long. Although it starts strong with an ominous first chapter and has quite a hauntingly bleak conclusion, somewhere in between the narrative loses its bite and thus ends it potential for greatness.

In addition to being overlong, Del Toro's work feels claustrophobic, a problem that his earlier films have been able to overcome more effectively. Overall, a film that could have been a masterpiece if it had spent more time in the cutting room. Some gruesomely violent scenes should be forewarned about. That being said, the film's final frame still lingers on. Recommended to viewers with patience and a strong stomach.

They should've stuck with the leaner, smarter ending in the novel, because boy was I sick of Bradley Cooper's overacting by then. Ironically, he's playing a character who's repeatedly told not to buy into his own hype, when he needs that lesson more than Stanton Carlisle ever did.

Everyone else is competent at least. I thought at first that Rooney Mara was miscast, but she's playing a very different Molly Cahill from the novel, and does so effectively. Most of the cast are too old for their roles, but I can overlook that. It necessarily deviates from the novel for length, complexity and the practicalities of filmmaking, but also some arbitrary changes that are never improvements.

What's missing is the grandeur and spectacle that keep even del Toro's lesser films from being dull. There are good performances, good visuals, but nothing achieves greatness.

Like all of Del Toro's films, Nightmare Alley is a visual feast. The production design and cinematography transported me into his grim and glossy dystopian vision.

Also, the acting is some of the best I've seen in one of Del Toro's movies. Bradley Cooper gives perhaps his finest performance, and he sells every unsettling moment of this horrifying cautionary tale as his character is consumed by the consequences of his pride.

The best moments in this story really are some of the best scenes of the year, and they will stick with me for some time to come.

The film's biggest weakness is it's obviously bloated runtime. The second act really meanders and focuses on romantic subplots without giving us reasons to believe that the characters fall in love. A great deal of material should have been either explored more or cut altogether. As it stands, the center of this story is woefully half-baked.

Still, the production design and performances alone make this worth checking out. It really is something to behold.