Crime Story

I'm no movie writer but this movie makes really no sense. Horribly put together. Halfway through I was like why am I still watching this movie. Waste of time.

That was 1 hour and 38 minutes I will never get back. Don't waste your movie watching time on this dud. I watched it thinking how bad can it be with Richard Dreyfuss starring in it. But what is this, his name is listed as just one of the cast, way down on the list. I guess I don't blame him for not wanting top credit for this waste of digital bytes saved desperately to this digital movie cloud only to become rain and evaporate.

Goodness! I've always had a soft spot for Richard Dreyfuss all the way back to Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He just had this charm in him, his characters almost always give out a snickering smile even when the situation's serious. It's there in Jaws, Nuts, Goodbye Girl etc. And when I saw Dreyfuss' name headline this revenge actioner, I told myself, "this, I wanna see." I didn't doubt he could pull it off.

And truth be told, his Ben Myers does carry some weight of conviction. But that's about where the good stuff ends. Well, Mira Sorvino & Pruit Taylor Vince do throw in whatever character-acting chops they have into their scenes, but everything else falls into the category of Bruce Willis' latest cinematic hobby - straight to dvd territory. Bad lighting, patchy camera work, & sloppy editing. I could hardly believe that two Oscar winners in Dreyfuss & Sorvino landed into this mess. Taylor Vince included. What were they thinking? Or do they need to find new agents? Throw in other amateur actors whose screen demeanour quickly reveals that much, and you wonder, just what path did Dreyfuss take to come to this place at this stage in his career? I sure hope he doesn't tread the Bruce Willis path.

I can't believe what I saw made the final cut-to-market. This film by Adam Lipsius should be a film school example of what NOT to do.

Firstly, this is the perfect example of how a score can make or break a film, and this has to be one of the worst. I'm used to the typical annoyingly loud, overbearing, non-stop and unfitting score in B-grade films, but this was a whole new level of annoying. At the start, I kept yelling at Dreyfuss to "answer the damn door!". But it was the score - a constant knocking sound. Throughout, you'll hear clanging, ringing, banging etc... was there even a composer in this production, or just some random tools in a garage being slammed around?

Then you have Lipsius' incoherent and convoluted story, with dialogue and scenes that will make you shake your head. Why did he shoot the bathroom door where Nan was if he loved and cared about her so much? Don't even get me started on the plot and technical issues, that made what was supposed to be a criminal underworld story, feel inept, unconvincing and boring as it gets. And that's a real shame, when this is supposed to be "based on true events", and you end up scratching your head and yawning by the end.

Next, you have the barely legible muddled dialogue of Dreyfuss, that when combined with his slow and poorly postured demeanor, I thought he was constipated throughout the entire film. Add in Pruitt Taylor Vince's character Tommy, and you have two geriatric actors trying to get through filming. Aside from their snail-paced movements (I'm sure blame falls on Lipsius' failure to direct his cast properly), the entire film's slow pacing, made the normally comfortable 98 min runtime feel endless. Even Mira Sorvino's performance seemed like it was her first ever acting gig (again, due to Lipsius' failure to direct his cast properly).

His (twitchy) camerawork and cinematography were just awful, and this film needed some serious editing. I really can't find anything redeeming about Crime Story. It's a very generous 3/10 from me (much better than the current 0% on Rotten Tomatoes), all going to the Oscar winners out of pity they'll have this mess on their resumes.

For some reason (easy money), many former A list stars now appear in these no budget revenge thriller crap.

Why someone who appeared in classics like Jaws, Schindler's List or Die Hard would ruin their reputation with dreck like this is beyond me. These are seasoned pros. Surely at some point during pre-production they must have realized this would not be another John Wick.

This particular outing has it all. Shaky handheld cam in almost every scene, LSD trip color grading that looks absolutely atrocious. I can get better looking footage with my Canon EOS DSLR. Bad score, bad acting, terrible script....

Just why? There's no way this will turn a profit. Is it a gamble, is it a tax writeoff? I don't get it.