Leaves of Grass Reviews

Ok, now, it is official… With Johnny Depp, Edward Norton must be the most overrated actor at work nowadays. I mean, ever since ‘Fight Club’ and ‘American History X’, Norton was hailed as the best actor of his generation and I was one of the many who believed so but everything he has done afterwards was rather disappointing. I mean, all his subsequent work was basically divided in two categories, under-performing blockbusters (‘The Bourne Legacy’, ‘The Incredible Hulk’,…) and underwhelming indie features (‘Death to Smoochy’, ‘Down in the Valley’,…) with the notable exception of ‘25th hour’ which was really good. Actually, none of his movies were really bad but all of them were really forgettable which was rather frustrating especially since I was expecting something amazing each time around. Anyway, this flick definitely belongs to the 2nd category (underwhelming smaller features). Basically, it is a really obscure movie that almost nobody saw when it was released and it wasn’t really good I’m afraid. I was actually really surprised to find out that Roger Ebert actually loved this flick. Well, we don’t have to agree all the time. Basically, it is a really misguided comedy with some rather annoying characters and after 30 minutes, I really started to worry. And then, when the two brothers got together, it really got better but the level of the whole thing kept swinging between quite compelling and really underwhelming. As usual, even if the movie itself was not really good, Edward Norton always delivers a solid performance and it was not different here. Indeed, he managed to create two distinctive individuals and it was pretty impressive. To conclude, I think I’m being really generous with my rating here but, somehow, I still think it is worth a look but, as usual with Norton, don’t expect anything amazing though.