Sean Penn. Josh Brolin. Ryan Gosling. Emma Stone. 1940s Los Angeles Gangsters.
Should add up to pretty awesome.
From Zombieland director, Ruben Fleischer, this seems possibly a touch over-stylised, so perhaps adjust expectations from "great" to "entertaining". More sharp suits, though. And guns.
Wish they had cut back on Sean Penn's make up. It's all I notice in any of his scenes.
Reviews have been lukewarm since its premiere at Cannes, but any film where Sean Penn gets to play an aging goth rock star still dressing the part & living off royalties in Dublin until he decides to track down the ex-Nazi refugee who humiliated is late, estranged father, in New York, is worth a watch.
Also, any film where Sean Penn & Frances McDormand get to share the screen is worth a watch.
Kind of hoping Sean Penn is not this monotonous throughout, though...
Anything by Terrence Mallick is always big news. Just four films to his name, and a planet of acclaim. Badlands & Days of Heaven in the 70s, then a 20-year wait before 1998's The Thin Red Line (Saving Private Ryan with more nature, poetry & more indie names in the cast). His most recent, The New World, did not impress everyone, but I loved it. The story dragged on & perhaps the characters did not convince, but with Mallick's potently poetic combination of images, music & internal monologues, I could sit through hours of ineffective plot & mopey Colin Farrell.
His latest is a sprawling epic that takes in everything from dinosaurs to a troubled father-son relationship (Brad Pitt is the father, Sean Penn is the son - in two different timelines, of course).
Leans toward pretentious, but oh so beautiful. I could watch this trailer all day.
