An interesting failure

Back in 1997, Gus Van Sant scored his biggest box-office hit with ‘Good Will Hunting’. Not only was this movie a success for Van Sant, it meant at last a major breakthrough for Matt Damon and Ben Affleck who are pretty much Hollywood royalties nowadays (ok, the journey was pretty tortuous for Affleck but he got there eventually, didn’t he?). Anyway, 5 years later, Gus Van Sant and Matt Damon were reunited and this time, Ben’s little brother, Casey Affleck, joined the party. Personally, I never really cared for Van Sant’s more commercial outings but this flick definitely belonged to his more experimental work and that was most welcome. Indeed, in the whole movie, you just have Matt Damon and Casey Affleck wandering in a desert, talking about everyday stuff. It may sound lame but I found it rather fascinating. Indeed, both actors delivered some really strong performances and I’m a sucker for Van Sant’s understated directing style. Unfortunately, since there is not plot and no other characters to interact and even though the whole thing was really intriguing, it felt also rather empty and the ending was downright disappointing. Indeed, it came seriously out of nowhere and it was as if the makers tried to force some meaning on the proceedings but it didn’t work, at least, for me. To conclude, even though the whole thing was rather flawed, it still think it is a really interesting experimental feature and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

6/10