Big Gold Brick

What could go wrong with such a high quality cast & production that is so well connected? Well I had to see for myself. The performances were good considering what they were given to work with. A script that tries to cram too much flash & expose for its own good.

The plot like a Seinfeld episode has Floyd, played by Andy Garcia, accidentally hits Samuel (Emory Cohen) with his car. Unbeknownst to him, Samuel is very troubled individual. Feeling guilty, Floyd invites Samuel to stay with his family & to be his autobiographer.

I feel that this film tried too hard to be too many things. The script & direction needed more focus. I thought things would improve when Samuel moved in with Floyd's family. It had a Royal Tennebaum's vibe but the laughs were few & far between. Meagan Fox stole every scene that she was in but she was under utilized. The pacing was off & the movie as a whole suffered for this.

Disturbed Samuel thought that he was moving into home life that he never had. But little did he know that the family had their own quirks & issues. This should have led to more laughs but the first half of the movie moved at a glacial pace & the quirkiness that we hoped for never materialized.

That when the payoff comes at the end, it was just too rushed & everything too nicely tied up. Aside from the good performances & high production values, I can't honestly recommend this.

And I don't think that's for some (trying to be) deep or pretentious reason. I think you have to remember that the storyteller is intended to be recovering from a traumatic brain injury. So we are being told a story through the lens of someone who has a contentious relationship with reality and an, at times, skewed perspective of people, objects, and the relationships between them. So the insanity (I mean that literally) blends with the story in a way that is inextricable and unpredictable. This is actually why I loved this movie. It is completely unpredictable ... I had no idea where anything was going until it got there, fantastic.

It's not for everyone and it's not some deep meaningful opus ... it's just a bit of fun insanity to take you away from the un-fun insanity of the real world.

The acting is solid (except for Megan Fox whose career will end when her looks do because that's all she relies on), it's wonderfully shot, and the soundtrack is oddly appropriate for the chaos it tries to imply.

Overall, solid film for a fun afternoon streaming at home. I would not pay for it though.

This is not Memento-level stuff, nor Wes Anderson, nor Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, but if you have the appetite for nonlinear nonsensical weird stories, then I would agree with other viewers that the cast itself makes the strongest case for viewing this, and they do the characters justice - the character studies are wonderful and there's an Addams Family/chosen family vibe that at times strikes me as awkward/relatable and like maybe there is a family for everybody out there, somewhere. This writer is obviously inspired by greatness and not QUITE there yet, but...possibly en route.

After all the great movies Oscar Isaac played in this past year, it's a shock to see him in a movie as bad as this one. The movie clearly just doesn't know what it wants to be. It's a collage of a bunch of nothing. Don't waste your time watching. Check out other Oscar Isaac movies from last year instead.

Dumb story imo, with poorly read and unnecessary narration, dialog unnatural and pretentious... overall I'd skip this. It just bored me. Andy Garcia was great but played opposite Emory Cohen in an awful Sam Kinneson wig, and acting is definitely not Emory's thing. Oscar Isaac's silly role wasn't interesting or funny.