THE SEAN PENN FILM FESTIVAL: The last two films I've seen in the theater, "Mystic River" and "21 Grams," both happened to star Baghdad Sean. And while I don't make it a habit to judge the work of performers based on their politics, I consider both films highly overrated, with great performances all around in both, but not much else to recommend. (Minor spoilers for both)
"Mystic River," I know, is loved by many people in and out of the blogosphere. Now it takes place in a section of Boston in which I never set foot in the four years I lived in that city, and I never read the book, both of which may very well cloud my judgment of the film. And while I thought the performances were almost across the board great, my biggest objection to "Mystic River" was the contrived, coincidence-filled plot.
Despite its pedigree, the film has the exact same structure as a much less lauded film, "Basic Instinct": there's a murder, there are two suspects and, scene-by-scene, we're supposed to alternately suspect this person, no this person, no this person. And I thought character development was a strength of the film, that is until Laura Linney's bizarre "you are a king" speech at the end, which I'm still scratching my head about five days later.
It's not a bad film- handsomely shot and, like I said, great performances- but it had the sort of plot that repeatedly made me want to shout, "aw, come on!"
I didn't like "21 Grams" much more. While once again the acting was superlative, but this is one of those films where you have to ask if the non-linear narrative actually serves a purpose, or if its just cinematic masturbation on the part of the director. Unlike "Pulp Fiction," "Memento," or others of the genre, "21 Grams" really would be a better film told in standard order. Add the generally ugly visual style, and that you can't understand a word out of Benecio Del Toro's mouth, and I can't recommend it, several minutes of naked Naomi Watts notwithstanding.