Fantastic!

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Coco Chavez (Carla Gugino) lures men and blackmails them in small grifts with boyfriend Junior Armstrong (Simon Baker). They recruit Lizard Browning (Gil Bellows) and wild man Ruben Rubenbauer (Til Schweiger) to kidnap computer tycoon Ben Dyson who has a $4 million insurance policy to pay the ransom. It doesn't go smoothly as Coco kills Senator Rupert Hornbeck (Hal Holbrook)'s wife. Cynical police detective David Friedman (Alan Rickman) is forced to take the case along with an equally cynical FBI Agent Sadie Hawkins (Emma Thompson) as his partner.I can do without all the southern accents. Along with the mannered dialog, it becomes a bit annoying. The actors make a passable attempt at neo-noir. However it doesn't amount to anything compelling. Rickman and Thompson could have been a funny pairing but it's not enough. Sebastian Gutierrez is trying to be Tarantino but he's nowhere good enough especially for his first movie.

I admit it;I bought this movie because Alan Rickman is in it, and I'm a huge fan of his. But I was surprised by the whole film. I got a little worried when the first scene I saw was a lesbian porn-movie, but that was soon forgotten. The plot is good, and I was totally into it from the first minute. The camera's been used to give you a kind of stressed feeling, and I think I got a little stressed with the characters. This movie left me staring blankly at the screen first time I watched it, and I wasn't sure what I'd just seen. Now that I've seen it a couple of time, though, I think it's a great film. I couldn't help but notice how much Rickman's character, David Friedman, resembles John Rebus (books by Ian Rankin). The same sarcastic, dry humor. Old battered car. Divorced, one daughter. Likes to do things his own way, and doesn't let a beating stop him. The only thing I slightly disliked about this movie was that you felt like you were thrown into the last episode of a tv show, not knowing what had been going on before. I felt there should have been more both before and after. But in the end, that's the charm of the film. You're thrown into it, and before you know it it's over and you're left wondering what the hell just happened. I recomend this one. Really recomend it!

What I really like about this movie is that the kidnapers generally show some intelligence...a rare thing in films. They don't have many of the film clichés that plague this types of films--they don't openly fight showing little or no cohesion, a rift isn't created in which the hostage can exploit to get away, and they don't fall for the "stall them and tell them it takes more time" ploys. The only two discernable "stupid criminal" clichés I noticed was opening up the case and gawking at the money in the gateway car and stopping the car to get another cell phone battery from the trunk...but there are other reasons for that. I also like the way Rickman's and Thompson's characters play off each other...it's fun to watch.

"Judas..." attempts to be a intriguing noir crime flick by filming in the "Big Easy" with lots of dark shots, sweaty bodies, gritty dialogue, and other elements obviously contrived to appeal to the viscera. The unfortunate result is a mediocre, marginally interesting film with some woeful southern accents, a convoluted plot, lame attempts at artistry, bad casting, and such poor character development that half the audience roots for the bad guys while the other half roots for the good guys. Worth a watch but only after seeing "L.A. Confidential" and the top films of this genre.