An average movie

Even though this movie had a pretty bad reputation, since it was directed by John Frankenheimer and since there was a pretty cool cast, I thought I might as well give it a try. Indeed, the cast was nice with a young Ben Affleck and Charlize Theron but that was about the only interesting thing this movie had to offer (there was also a very small part by an even younger Ashton Kutcher). Eventually, Charlize Theron herself admitted that the movie was pretty bad and she did it just for the opportunity to be working with Frankenheimer. For Ben Affleck, it was the beginning of his downward spiral, a bad break in his career which would last actually only 4 years but would damage incredibly his career. The way he made a come-back recently was just downright impressive though. Coming back to our main feature, basically, it is a rather misguided and boring crime feature taking place during Christmas (why all those movies, even ‘Die Hard’, take place during Christmas is just beyond me…). For Frankenheimer, it would be his last directing effort and it is rather sad that such an interesting director would end up his career on such a low note. To conclude, I have seen worse, but it is still pretty damned average and it is not really worth a look, I’m afraid.

5/10