Fantastic!

Better Late Then Never

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

This is not the worst film I ever saw. But it was in the competition.This film makes a mistake many suspense films make -- there is no character that the audience can really root for. Every character here is sleazy and a poor excuse for a human being. In fact, I feel dirty from just watching this film.When I began watching, I thought this film showed some promise as a thriller. It didn't take long for the film to descend into not just violent behavior, but I would say deviant behavior. And there's a difference between violence and suspense. And, in the ending, my contention that each of the characters is pathetic is confirmed.However, there is one good thing to say about the film -- the acting is decent. In my view, Josh Brolin is a very good actor, and I think he does very well here. This film, however, was made in his early years before he was a known quantity.I am not familiar with Alessandro Nivola at all, but his acting here was quite good. He seems to have a decent career; I'll have to watch for him.And then we come to Reese Witherspoon. I think Witherspoon is a good actress, and she is effective here, although this was also, for her, before she became well known. There's always been something that made me uncomfortable with Witherspoon, even though I acknowledge her acting ability. I can't explain it, but I felt it more so in this film.Do I recommend this film? No, unless you just want to see 3 actors in their early careers.Am I glad I watched it? No. Will I watch it again. Never.It flopped, and there are reasons for that.

„The best laid plans" is quite obviously inspired by David Mamet's movies . It tries to imitate Mamet style , but fails . The direction is lack luster . The plot twists are delivered without subtlety and movie is rather boring . Add to that a rather weak acting (even coming from Josh Brolin and Terrence Howard) and disaster is ready .Well , it isn't really a disaster . The movie is watchable . Sometimes a good dialogue appears and the guy who plays the drug dealer is quite good . Still , I can't shake off the feeling that David Mamet could do wonders with this story . The creators of this movie have nice twist at the end that definitely reminds me of Mamet . Unfortunately the emotional impact of that twist is strangely small. Nothing before and after that twist could be reward for audience patience.With better direction , acting and more tight screenplay "TBL" had a chance to be a good movie . It is however just a forgettable Saturday night entertainment.I give it 3/10.

SPOILERS THROUGH:I didn't think this was great, certainly not a movie along the lines of a "Usual Suspects" or "House Of Games" which are two of my favorites. But this movie is interesting and keeps one's attention. As long as one doesn't expect a masterpiece it maybe worth seeing.One positive is that the movie actually manages to surprise. In a movie world of predictability, this one is rather unpredictable. I didn't know what was coming moment to moment and the end was a genuine surprise. I thought, at times, the movie was going to go in completely different directions. So the fact that the movie pulls off the "twist and turn" aspect is good and these twists are actually rather original as well.And the performances were good particularly Witherspoon. The shadowy imagery fit well and for film noir purists this isn't a bad choice. It sure keeps one's interest despite, at times being a little draggy.But overall it still lacks the impact of the above mentioned movies. And the twists, while original, aren't really all that fascinating particularly the last one which lacks believability. The ending makes the movie almost a romance but for some reason it kind of fits.All in all this is a movie I'm ambivalent about. I would not recommend it as a must see but it's not bad either and is somewhat absorbing. I'd say it's around a 6.5 of 10 and is neither bad nor excellent. It maybe good to view as a late night and as long as one's not expecting a perfect 10 , this can make an interesting movie choice.

Having met his old buddy Bryce for the first time in years for a drink, Nick gets a call from him in the middle of night asking for help. He goes to Bryce's place where he gets told that Bryce pulled a girl that night, took her home, started messing around and then had sex. However immediately after sex the girl says that she is going to the police to tell them that she was raped. Bryce then takes Nick downstairs where he has the girl tied to a billiard table to prevent her leaving. The two men try to work out what they are going to do, but are things what they seem?Opening with an interesting set-up, this film jumps back in time and immediately undoes itself with a plot that is interesting but not as good as it really should have been. The plot follows the fall of Nick as he needs more money to cover firstly the dreams he has and then the problems he gets into when he tries to get the money by crime. Essentially this film could have been a mix of Tarantino, Mamet and Usual Suspects twists but it falls short of any of those targets but still manages to produce a reasonably good drama with elements of each. The plot isn't as good once it jumps back four months although it still has enough movement to keep things going. The twists are not that great and the plot itself doesn't make as much logical sense as it would like to think that it does. Nor is it as clever as it would like to think – the small town America was well painted but the work on the characters was not as good.Nivola leads the cast well with a nice performance of subtlety even if the material isn't always there for him. Witherspoon walks the film rather easily with a simple role that only really gets interesting towards the end. Of the rest of the cast Brolin is OK, Howard makes a solid appearance and generally everyone else turns in solid performances. It was a film that I felt the characters could have been more important and better developed but they were still good enough for the cast to work with.Overall this is a fairly typical thriller with a twist. It seems to want to be a bit like Tarantino with the dialogue edge of Mamet and the twists of things like Suspects but it doesn't really get close to any of them. Still, it produces an engaging thriller that, although not original, is distracting at least.