While not completely my film genre of choice, this Ridley Scott film is quite good. Featuring some fine performances from the cast and a retro yet gorgeous visualization by Ridley, the solid script comes to life nicely.

Writing: Notable writer Steven Zaillian pulls off an interesting mesh of crime drama and class war, without it feeling like somebody trying to “pull off” something. It rolls out some tried and true pieces of the puzzle, such as the adversarial yet respectful relationship between the cop and the criminal. And it evokes the period quite well.

Production: There’s no such thing as a Ridley Scott movie that’s poorly produced. The look of the movie is gritty, but it doesn’t lose that sense of beauty and depth that Ridley brings to any material. While some scenes feel like they’re straight out of a John Frankenheimer movie from the 70’s, they still feel like they have a fresh approach.

Cast: No shortage of excellent talent on display when it comes to the cast. Denzel is an easy and obvious casting choice. He’s easily capable of pulling off both sides of the character. Russell Crowe is also an easy and obvious casting choice. This is Crowe’s third film with Ridley, and is clearly becoming a favorite acting choice for the director (he’s also starring in Ridley’s next movie, Body Of Lies). Denzel has worked a number of times with Ridley’s brother Tony (including the upcoming remake of The Taking Of Pelham 123), but this is his first movie for Ridley. What most people don’t remember is that Washington & Crowe have co-starred together before, on a movie that I’m quite fond of - Virtuosity. It contains what is still probably my favorite Russell Crowe performance (he chews up the scenery in it). Other bits of casting in this film are also quite good including Chiwetel Ejiofor, Carla Gugino, Ted Levine, Armand Assante, Cuba Gooding Jr and Joe Morton.

Music: Having spent about 10 years working for Hans Zimmer’s team of composers at Remote Control (formerly Media Ventures), Marc Streitenfeld was given his first composer credit with Ridley’s previous film, A Good Year. Clearly, he must have done a good job as Ridley used him again on this film and is using him again on his next movie, Body Of Lies. His score for this film is certainly well done. Like the movie, it takes a period retro approach but retains a different feel.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 13th, 2007 at 9:52 pm and is filed under Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.