ajfdavie

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. A gripping, bizarre yet intriguing story. A film about obsession, competition, conflict and loyalty, with a strong message regarding the often isolating effect that money can have and what is, at times, the ugly reality of the American Dream. Five-star cast, superb direction and beautifully shot.

It is so refreshing to see a relatively "mainstream" American movie that is so well made. Unlike most Hollywood trash (about as subtle as a sledgehammer), this movie was wonderfully understated. It moved at a welcome, slow pace which paid respect to the passage of time. Dialogue was often sparingly used (to great effect). All of the scenes, whether stunning landscape shots or choreographed wrestling sequences, were beautifully and tastefully filmed.

The characters were so strong; well-crafted and thoughtfully presented. The acting was uniformly superb. Most impressively of all, much of the character development was conveyed via body language, rather than through dialogue. Right from the word go, one had such a strong sense of what each character was about; the surly, intense and hunched over Mark (Tatum), the caring, supportive Dave (Ruffalo) and the weird, unbalanced du Pont (Carell).

All three chief actors were excellent, but special praise must go to Carrell for his brilliant depiction of the eccentric, unhinged du Pont. Money talks, and there is no finer illustration of this than du Pont - a man who has every material object he could possibly desire yet pathetically (and unsuccessfully) craves the approval of those around him. Instead, he only succeeds in making everyone he comes into contact with immediately ill-at-ease, all the while understanding that they need to stay on the good side of the man who will help them realise their ambitions, albeit in a grandiose and self-gratifying manner. The dynamic between du Pont and the film's other characters was fascinatingly, and exceptionally, conveyed.

Sure, the directors presumably took some liberties with the re-telling of events as they actually happened, but what movie "based on a true story" doesn't? I generally take all movies of this kind with a pinch of salt.

I warmly recommend this movie. A thoughtful and beautifully constructed take on a unique, strange and ultimately tragic tale.

This was a funny one for me... while there was a lot to admire about this movie, there were several things that irritated me about it.

On the one hand, it was, in many respects a well-made film; the acting was superb (almost always the case in European movies), the pacing was good, and it was well shot. Some of the scenes were excellent, and the director did a fantastic job of building the tension, and making the audience squirm as the main protagonist dug himself deeper and deeper into a hole of self-destruction. The ending was left deliberately and intriguingly ambiguous (which I like). There were also moments of real comedy, which were well-placed.

There were, however, a number of frustrating aspects to it. Several elements of the plot were glaringly improbable, which made the characters harder to empathise with, and the movie harder to take seriously. The musical score was almost comically ominous and melodramatic. A narrator suddenly popped up halfway through the movie and only appeared twice more - a needless, distracting and frankly baffling gimmick. One strand of the plot fizzled out and proved ultimately irrelevant.

In summary, this movie is worth seeing if there's nothing else on. There are some interesting ideas, some great scenes, and its emotional, passionate nature would appeal to the romantics of this world. The cast is also superb. There were, however, several problems with it, which served to exasperate me.