A subdued film noir
(with mild comedy elements and good dialogue) starring John Cusack as a Wichita
mob lawyer who steals a couple of million from his employer.
John
Cusack stars in this downbeat Christmas tale, which probably won’t linger in
theaters until the holiday. He, an attorney, and Billy Bob Thornton have just
swiped a couple of million dollars from the local mob in Wichita, Kansas. (Even
if the movie does take its setting from the Scott Phillips novel on which it’s based,
and even if it makes it look it like a small town consisting largely of strip
joints rather than a city of 300,000 people, I have to give an extra quarter of
a star just based on this novelty.) The director is Harold Ramis of Caddyshack,
Ghost Busters, and Groundhog Day fame, but this isn’t much like
those, or like Thornton’s other Christmas cheer-down, Bad Santa. In
fact, it has the feel of the last movie on which writers Richard Russo and
Robert Benton collaborated, Twilight with Paul Newman. It’s a subdued,
old-fashioned film noir, complete with a femme fatale (Connie Nielsen).
It’s probably boring if you’re looking for much action or even scenery, and the
story elements are familiar, at least if you’ve seen some old detective films,
but it does have well-written dialogue, suspense and some humor. Oliver Platt
is amusing as Cusack’s drunken friend, who tells anyone in earshot that he’s
pals with a mob lawyer (i.e. Cusack), though Thornton has movie’s only real
laugh-aloud line.
circulated via email 12/15/05 and posted online 9/20/13
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