I highly recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys crime/legal thriller, appreciates an original script with fine twist and excellent acting from the ensemble cast! Anthony Hopkins returned to his evil root (Hannibal in Silence of the Lamb) in this latest feature, playing a calm, obsessive and yet very intelligent criminal Ted Crawford who allegedly killed his wife after knowing about her extra-marital affair, but was immediately apprehended at the murder site.
This was exactly how straight forward the movie opened, with the known fact that he shot his wife in the head before our very eyes. And it is this simple setup that attracts the audience. I can't help to wonder what would follow and how it can last for nearly 2 hours. Then entered the winning-oriented and climbing-to-the-top young and ambitious hot-shot attorney Willy Beachum (played by last year's Academy Award Best Actor Nominee Ryan Gosling) becoming the unwilling prosecutor in the Crawford's murder case. The two met in the courtroom and that's where the fun really began, as the prosecution proved to be not as easy and simple as Willy had expected when taking the case......
Director Gregory Hoblit (with fame from acclaimed movies like Primal Fear, Fallen, and Frequency......interestingly all "F" words including this movie) successfully pulled it off again this time, with a pretty comfortable pace, fluid and brilliant story line, appropriate humour at various places; it never fails to keep our brain working and at the same time keep our undivided attention. Hoblit smartly started the movie with the close-up shots of the little self-made miniature roller-coaster toy that Ted enjoys building and playing while rolling the opening credits to let us have the glimpse of how his meticulous mind works, not to mention a bit of his personality, including his accuracy and calculation in planning things. His job as the plane engineer cannot fit him better. I also love the deliberate vision of the director --- the various look at people through reflections, glass or shadows, to give the distant feelings between the characters in the movie, and to set up the dark and mysterious vibe for it.
As I have said and you should have probably known, the acting is genuinely marvelous from the two lead actors, thus giving more weight and credibility to the already good script. This is definitely not a profound movie with great moral lessons, but it is all the way unpredictable and has a decently satisfying ending. All in all, it simply sucks you into the screen and gives you hell of a roller-coaster ride!
