Word: films
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...pickings when it came to selecting their launch vehicle to the silver screen. Scott Porter (“Friday Night Lights”) plays the dashing Tommy Fielding, who looks to the audience like a high school senior doing his internship at a Wall Street firm, but whom the film helpfully tells us is actually a stock broker there. Painted from the start as “the good guy” in a depraved world full of cut-throats and egotists, Fielding is dating the lovely Beth Vest (Alexis Bledel of “Gilmore Girls?...
Hence, there is Dan’s miraculous transformation from a borderline autistic into a Wall Street whiz who is also the life of Beth’s book club. (It’s a girls-only book club, but this film is far too clever to be derailed by such trivialities as believability.) Similarly, Beth trades men like Daniel trades personalities. It seems Tommy’s job keeps him too busy to hang out every single second of their screen-time, and so naturally she gravitates towards the only other male character in the story...
Almost as frustrating as this cardboard characterization is the fact that scattered throughout this rather awful movie are the makings of a very good one. Director DiPietro is just in the wrong genre. Whenever the film strays into the territory of romantic comedy, it actually works. The lines are funny, the soundtrack is snappy, and the atmosphere is ideal. The actors are winning, if cookie-cutter, and know how to tell a joke. DiPietro is also a very artful showman, able to convey his characters’ emotions through unlikely angles and lush camera work. When his characters...
...Good Guy” is, in a word, contrived. The people in it are props, with actions dictated by the director just as much as anything else on screen. In this way, the film manipulates its characters, its plot, and its audience to teach a pseudo-sophisticated moral about how being true to one’s self is a greater pleasure than all the money, luxury, and girls that charm can buy. “The Good Guy” forgets that it’s hard for a film to preach integrity when its script has none...
...police drama “Training Day,” though if he had, “Brooklyn’s Finest” would have been much more satisfying. While boasting an all-star lineup, including Richard Gere, Don Cheadle, Ethan Hawke, and Wesely Snipes, the film remains a pedestrian melodrama...