An average movie

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it was directed by Wayne Kramer and since there was a decent cast involved, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, Kramer is another director who started with a really strong debut (‘The Cooler’) but then, each of his following directorial effort has been weaker than the previous one. It was especially the case with this last project, some kind of ‘Pulp Fiction’ clone, which was basically destroyed by the critics. Well, to be honest, I actually did like the 1^st tale involving some hilarious junkies involved in one of the most misguided hold-ups I have ever seen. Indeed, the tone was perfect and it was one of the rare occasions that some really stupid characters actually turned out to be quite entertaining. I was also rather impressed by Paul Walker and it is rather tragic that the guy finally displayed some acting skills in the last movie he released before his death. The 2^nd tale with Matt Dillon at the centre also had some potential and it worked fine, as far as I was concerned, up until the point that he discovered all these women locked up in these cages. Indeed, so far, it was taking place in a realistic small US town but this development was just too much over-the-top and, to be honest, the whole thing never really recovered from this misguided choice. Then, you had this 3^rd and final tale involving some Elvis impersonator which was not only tedious but also borderline cringe-inducing to behold. The fact that this Elvis impersonator was played by Brendan Fraser, in my opinion, one of the most underwhelming actors ever, obviously didn’t help. Anyway, to conclude, in contrary to the really harsh reviews that this movie has received and even if I have to admit that it was indeed Wayne Kramer’s weakest movie so far, I still think it is actually worth a look, if only to see Paul Walker actually acting for once.