ccmiller1492

Annoying and unsatisfying noir without a single likeable character. In fact it can hardly muster a convincing player, with minor roles by McCoy and Albert the only ones that seem natural enough to avoid the stilted contrivances of the major roles. If you manage to keep your boredom at bay until the end there is some small reward in finding out how the twisted plot is resolved, but it's at best a 50-50 proposition of whether that's worth the time spent.

It's very refreshing to see a quiet film with likeable leads who seem to inhabit their characters effortlessly. The baseball connection was what drew me in, and the fact that Walker reminded me so much of Elroy Hirsch aka "Crazylegs" who actually played himself in a bio-pic back in 1953 When you get tired of the constant overdone cgi, speed, explosions, and gratuitous violence in much of today's screen fare it pays off to check out the Hallmark films. I've caught a few others with Andrew Walker and he always gives a believable, sincere performance which overrides the sometimes contrived cuteness of the plots. This is the one that left the first and lasting impression...understated, but sweet and memorable. .

Apparently those who have not actually read and enjoyed the original Robert E. Howard stories are responsible for this film's incomprehensibly and unfairly underrated status. It's far superior to the earlier attempts and much truer to Howard's characterization. As a film it's also superior to such bloated and underwhelming projects as "Prince of Persia" and "Gods of Egypt" which were little more than boring big-screen video games with non-existent or nonsensical plots. The abundant action proceeds briskly and the film looks stunning. It's an excellent introduction to the Conan character with Jason Mamoa doing the barbarian proud. Unfortunately it's generating more fans from the DVD release than it did while during its theatrical run, which is probably going to preclude more of the Conan stories being filmed, on this scale at least.