Showing posts with label Al Pacino. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Al Pacino. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 23, 2018

'Hangman' is not worth your time

Hangman (2017)
Starring: Carl Urban, Brittany Snow, and Al Pacino
Director: Johnny Martin
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A retired police detective (Pacino), a criminal profiler (Urban), and an investigative journalist (Snow) are drawn into a twisted game by a serial killer with ties to the past of one or more of them.


"Hangman" is a lazily written movie that stands at the intersection between the thriller, the police procedural, and the horror movie, in that it has elements of all three genres and deploys them all in a mediocre fashion. The cast gives the weak script the performances it deserves, with no one being especially good or bad... although Pacino pretty much just walks through a role he's probably played a dozen times in his career, so I suppose he gets a point for consistency and predictability if you're watching because you're a fan of his.

Although purely mediocre for most of its running time, it's the last five seconds that push the movie down from the low-end of average to just bad due to a misguided attempt to tack on a shock ending, or maybe leave the door open for a sequel. Whatever the motivation for the truly stupid final moment, it wipes away what little "Hangman" had going for it.

Unless you come across this turkey late night on cable, or you've watched everything there is to see on Amazon Prime or Netflix, you should avoid "Hangman." It is not worth your time.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

'Insomnia' is worth staying awake for

Insomnia (2002)
Starring: Al Pacino, Robin Williams, and Hillary Swank
Director: Chrstopher Nolan
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

In "Insomnia", a big city cop (Pacino) travels to a remote hamlet in Alaska to help solve the brutal rape and murder of a teenaged girl, and to avoid a brewing corruption scandal at home. While his mental state slowly deteriorates due to an inability to sleep in the eternal daylight above the Arctic Circle, he finds himself in a bizarre relationship of mutual blackmailing with the murderer (Williams) while the town's young deputy sheriff (Swank) slowly puts the puzzle together and closes in on both of them.


"Insomnia" is an American remake of a Scandinavian film by the same title, and, unlike the seemingly endless stream of remakes of recent Japanese and Chinese films that are all worse than the originals, this film stands up nicely in comparison. It's a tad too slow--the middle sags almost as bad as the Pacino character on this fourth or fifth day without any real sleep--but the actors are all great in their parts, the script is generally well-crafted, the setting is used to its full potential, and the ending is perfect.

I think people who enjoy thrillers will be happy staying up late to watch "Insomina".