A good movie

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since it was directed by Steven Soderbergh and since there was a decent cast involved, I thought I might as well check it out. First of all, I want to discuss something which has nothing to do with this movie. Indeed, nowadays, many directors are praising what they called the ‘cinematic experience’ but, even though I still love movies, I sometimes doubt if it’s really necessary to watch them in the movie theater though. Indeed, I saw this flick yesterday in the movie theater, it was really late, it was the very last screening of the day and there was not even a third of room filled up. And, yet, behind me, there was a row of guys who kept talking and laughing through most of the duration and, as a result, it was pretty much impossible for me to follow the damned thing. It was especially annoying in this case as it was a rather smart and complex feature. Indeed, if you were expecting some action scenes with care chases, explosions or gun fights, you will be seriously disappointed. I especially enjoyed the diner scene at the beginning. The interesting thing about this movie was how they tried to show how difficult, some say even impossible, for spies like them to sustain a long lasting romantic relationship but, to be honest, I don’t necessarily agree. Indeed, as far as I’m concerned, even if you have the tools at your disposal to convincingly lie or hide things to your partner like the people in this line of work, you are still the one making the choice to use these tools, nobody forces you to do such things, as perfectly displayed by George and Kathryn. Concerning the plot, to be honest, I’m not sure if it all made sense though. I mean, the starting point was basically that James Stokes was too drunk at some point and spoke too much but it seemed rather unconvincing. Finally, like pretty much everything delivered by Soderbergh the last 25 years, even though the concept was definitely interesting, the end-result still felt rather half-baked though and I wonder if an extra 30 mins to better fleshed out all the characters might not have done some wonders here. Anyway, to conclude, even though the viewing conditions were just terrible, it was still a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Steven Soderbergh’s work. 

7/10