Okay, so normal thursday night. Nothing good on TV. I decide to catch a netflix movie. As bored people do. I see this more recent flick, just added to netflix within the last few weeks. The Factory, 2012. John Cusack! He's a good actor, one of my favorites. Not all of his movies are blockbusters, but he never lacks for acting performance. Always on his game. I've never seen him phone one in, as they say. Then again, a lot of his characters are similar. Come to think of it, I'd love to see him do a romantic comedy again. He is awesome delivering one-liners and making sarcastic comments, like he did in Better off Dead and that one with Demi Moore where he's like a lovestruck artist hanging around the beach a lot. Can't recall the name of the movie. One Crazy Summer! Thanks IMDB. Bob Goldthwait was in that one too, you don't see him acting much anymore. Too busy directing, I guess. Also in this, Jennifer Carpenter, of Dexter fame, also Quarantine. Well on with the review.
Needless to say, with that kind of acting talent tossed into the mix, I figured I had picked a winner. And then, lo and behold, I find out that it's set in Buffalo, NY! Shit, that's where I LIVE! :-D They pretty much had me sucked in right then and there. I wish they had shown the outdoors more, but there were only a few glimpses of snow-covered streets. And I'm pretty sure all the snow was faked because the movie seemed to be showing a very bad winter, and we haven't had a bad winter around here in a while now. But it was mostly around thanksgiving, so maybe I was too drunk or stuffed with turkey to remember that particular holiday storm. It sure looked like Buffalo, at least from what I could see of the indoor scenes. Grey, lifeless, depressing, you know... Buffalo in the winter. lol
So here's John Cusack, playing an obsessed detective. He does obsessed and psychotic very well. I wouldn't be surprised if he strayed into villain territory in his next role switch. He's obsessed because 7 prostitutes disappeared the previous winter, and despite searching all through summer (while the apparent killer was not out hunting, I guess), the police have no leads. At the opening of the movie, they are basically closing the case. But Mike Fletcher, obsessed detective, isn't cool with that. He really CARES about these hookers. Which is probably a good thing, because, well, he's the hero, and you can't have a hero who doesn't give a shit. lol However, as with most police officers, he has a hard family life. Made all the harder due to the grey and dingy Buffalo winters, no doubt. So Mike still searches for these prostitutes in his off hours, and one night, while he's following up leads with his new partner (Jennifer Carpenter), Mike's daughter goes missing...
Oh noes! :-o
Spoilers to follow, all in this paragraph, but this movie was decent enough that I won't ruin it for you. I had no problems following this movie. All of it made sense except the whole Mike not eating or sleeping for days while searching for his daughter. Which still made sense, but I don't know why they benched Mike unless it was for roughing up that one suspect, because he was still mostly keeping it together. And yes, I know they don't let you work cases where family is involved but police do whatever the fuck they want anyway, so I don't imagine them stopping each other from working cases where loved ones are missing. I saw a lot of disappointed reviews on netflix about this movie. I actually thought it was well acted, and Jennifer Carpenter (I keep wanting to call her Charisma Carpenter, but I don't think they are related in any way) did a fine job. There was a lot of people saying she plays the same role here as she does in Dexter (on showtime). There were some basic similarities but I don't think this role was like the one in dexter much at all, and I've watched dexter since it premiered. The ending of this movie was particularly hard on most viewers, I guess. I sort of saw it coming, I mean, they gave you so many clues, I knew SOMETHING was up, so when it happened it all clicked together for me. Still, the loss at the end was unexpected, and probably why this film didn't do well in theaters. End spoilers.
All in all, i thought this was a good movie. Lots of suspense, a little action, cars driving really fast through blizzards although no actual chase scenes, your typical murder mystery type cop movie. I love these sorts of things. I always have fun trying to figure out the plot twists before they happen. And I'm usually right, but sometimes I get it wrong, and though you'd think that'd make it boring for me, it doesn't. There's always a few twists and turns that make the road interesting along the way. So, would I watch it again? Sure! Would I recommend it to others? Yep! Will others like the grey dinginess of buffalo winters? Fuck, no. lol
Come to think of it, this movie has a similar feel to the Jesse Stone movies. Those are set in Maine, or something like that. Bad winters there too. Starring Tom Selleck, those movies are some of the most depressing movies I have ever seen in my life. But they are all about the detective work, and Tom Selleck plays an excellently likeable police chief, if a bit of a drinker, so they are still fun to watch. I am glad I don't live in Maine, though. From the looks of it, it's almost as bad as Buffalo in the winter.
And no, I'm not down on where I live. It's really nice here in the summers, and the people are mostly great. But shit, we have an average of 206 cloudy days a year, and Seattle, Washington (i think it was seattle, anyway), the cloudiest city in the country, has 209. So, we're right up there in depressing settings, third or fourth gloomiest city in the country! YEAH BABY! And, come to think of it, those opther cities probably have nice architecture and beautiful countryside to help keep the inhabitants sane. Not so much, here. :-) No wonder I spend a lot of time indoors, staring at a computer screen. lol
Okay, that's it for now, back to kicking medieval ass in my latest computer game: Chivalry, Medieval Warfare! Rrrraaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!
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