barry pepper | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: Casino Jack

Posted on October 21, 2011 by Darren

Casino Jack boasts a superb performance from Kevin Spacey in the lead role of Jack Abramoff. Unfortunately, that’s about it. I don’t mean that Casino Jack is a bad film, by any means, it’s just a purely functional one. It manages to take a bunch of interesting elements – a timely political plot, a bunch of fascinating supporting performances, a compelling lead character – and do absolutely nothing with any of them. Despite the rather wonderful potential to tell a parable for our time, the script is formulaic and bland, with nothing by the way of insight.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Abramoff, barry pepper, casino jack, ENRON, god, Ides of March, Jack Abramoff, Jon Lovitz, kevin spacey, lobbying, non-review review, politics, review, United States | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: The Green Mile

Posted on August 9, 2010 by Darren

I never really responded to The Shawshank Redemption. I’ll go into why exactly if I ever get around to writing a review of it, but perhaps the fact that I never really embraced the film as strongly as most film fans (or even just, y’know, people) is the reason that I am somewhat fonder of The Green Mile than most. The Green Mile is admittedly as guilty as Frank Darabont’s early Stephen King adaptation set in a prison when it comes to emotional manipulation of its audience (look at us humanise the prison guards by having the three of them tackle a mouse in a borderline comedic fashion!), but I find it a lot more honest about its inherent darkness than that tale of redemption in Shawshank.