Critique the Critic

I chose to review the comments of Rich Cline on the movie We Own the Night directed by James Gray from the Rotten Tomatoes link. I have no idea who this James Gray character is so after a little reseach, I found out he directed the movie Little Odessa, which won a Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the Critic Prize at the Deauville Film Festival. Judging by these awards, Little Odessa must be a pretty solid movie, giving Gray credit to his directing skills which I anticipate he imposed into We Own the Night. The movie is basically about a particular family where the father and one son are police officers and the other son is in the world of selling drugs at a nightclub. Clines criticisms of the movie were very intelligent and interesting. I have not seen the movie yet but planned to, and now after Cline's words, im not quite sure its worth my time anymore. Cline describes the film in its entirety as,

"somewhat slow and dry with only brief flashes of emotion or action."

He also states, which was very key in my approval of the criticism,

"its a bit too deliberate and over-serious to keep us thoroughly engaged."

I cant stand movies where the director seems to be over the top so that the audience becomes fully engaged. This does not engage me however, it just makes me bored and wanting to just cut to the chase. When I go to see a movie, I enjoy a lot of action and fast paced scenarios. With this movie however, it appears as though my viewing pleasures would not be successfully fulfilled. I really like the actors and actresses who star in this film (Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Walhberg, and Eva Mendes) which was a main reason in my wanting to go watch the movie. After this review, I dont want to really go out and actively pursue renting this film (which comes out on DVD this week) . If I am bored with my friends and there are no other movies which look tasteful in the red box next weekend, I might consider renting We Own the Night.