An average movie

I already saw this movie but since it was a while back, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, I was surprised when I was reading my first review for this movie to discover that, apparently, I was at the time disappointed by the damned thing. I guess because Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Golsing were in the same movie together, against each other, I thought it should have been awesome or at least much better than what they delivered here. It’s a pity Roger Ebert didn’t write a review for this movie because I was really wondering what he would have thought about it. Anyway, after all, after a rewatch, I thought it was actually a fairly decent thriller with two great actors involved. I also enjoyed the minimalist approach and the fact that, even if someone is obviously guilty, without some evidence, they could still walk away. However, the simplicity of its story was also the main problem though. Indeed, basically, the whole case relied too much only on a missing gun which was after all pretty thin, narratively speaking. On top of that, I figured out the switching gimmick pretty much right away. I mean, it was fairy logical. Ted Crawford apparently didn’t have the gun, his wife certainly didn’t have this gun either so there was only one person left who did enter the house between the moment Crawford did commit the crime and was taken into custody. In the meantime, you get to see Ryan Gosling running around aimlessly and you think he will crack this case somehow, without this damned gun but, actually, he doesn’t find anything else which was rather disappointing, especially since he was supposed to be a brilliant prosecutor. Eventually, you also wonder what was the point of his relationship with Rosamund Pike who, by the way, did a lot with a barely developed character but the whole romantic angle was just a filler. At least, Hopkins and Gosling did deliver some solid performances and the directing was  decent. Anyway, to conclude, it is actually not a bad thriller and, just to see these top actors at work together, it is worth a look, but there is no doubt that it could have been much better though.


6/10