A_Different_Drummer

Easy to overlook how clever this really is. A plot twist no one sees coming in the first 45 minutes. One of the few scripts in the history of film to actually make the serial killer sympathetic -- in the same rarified air as Hannibal. Great pacing, especially the first two Acts. Great acting, direction, all the bits and pieces are where they should be. Under appreciated. ((Designated "IMDb Top Reviewer." Please check out my list "167+ Nearly-Perfect Movies (with the occasional Anime or TV miniseries) you can/should see again and again (1932 to the present))

Have done several thousand reviews here. This time, mindful of the fact that this IMDb database is likely to outlast every one of us "biologicals" currently on the planet, I am going off-book. I am doing this because I believe the much-vaunted creator of 1923, Sheridan, has aleady done this, and no one has noticed. On one level 1923 is high art. Everything from the voice-overs from a character killed off in another series -- wow! -- to the core love story, to the endless dance of good and evil -- all speak to a writer who ranks among the very best of our present era. But there is a second layer of writing here. You catch a glimpse of it in the references to Man Vs. Nature; you see it in the sub-arc about the brutalization of natives; you hear its whisper in the odd notion that one day people will pay to risk their lives sliding down a mountain on wooden planks -- and then of course there are constant pointers toward the undiscussed role of sexual suppression in our culture. But the payoff, the ultimate clue, is during the closing V. O., where we are told that the Earth has already had 5 Extinction Level Events. To be clear, whether or not this is true, we will never know, it was a monster feat of literary gymnastics to work those words into the script. The writer was clearly working on another level entirely. And so is this review. ((Designated "IMDb Top Reviewer." Please check out my list "167+ Nearly-Perfect Movies (with the occasional Anime or TV miniseries) you can/should see again and again (1932 to the present))

The script could be sharper. However. Hartnett, even this slightly older version of Hartnett, is still one of the most sympatico A-list actors in the biz. And Charithra Chandran is easily the most photogenic female lead since Kristin Cruek, with 1001+ facial expressions that light up the big screen. The film starts better than it ends which, as I have explained in other reviews, is a cruel trick to play on the viewer. Overall, however, a reliable time filler. ((Designated "IMDb Top Reviewer." Please check out my list "167+ Nearly-Perfect Movies (with the occasional Anime or TV miniseries) you can/should see again and again (1932 to the present))