The first time I saw this movie, I hated it. Then, 10 years later, I gave it another try when I saw that Soderbergh was the director. I'm really glad I did.
Some of the scenes are hard to believe. Like the warehouse scene. Why would he walk into that so unprepared? In the real world, they would have just killed him, but then the movie would have only been 20 minutes long. This was the scene that caused me to hate the movie when I first saw it. But this time I overlooked it.
What moved me on the second watching was the subtlety and the sadness in the movie. You feel the sadness of him not being able to be with his daughter as she grew up.
As for Peter Fonda, he's just annoying. The way he's cleaning his teeth with the toothpick, and the annoying conversations he has with his girlfriend are pathetic and painful to watch. But maybe thats the point. Also, the two pool-playing hit men are annoying and Soderbergh attempts to make them interesting is a little over-elaborate. Like the scene where the one guy is talking to trash about all the actors and extras as he watches the movie set.
But the scene with the DEA agent at the end accidentally slipping the file to Wilson was an interesting scene. Wilson's whole speech there was pretty interesting when he tells the DEA agent - I think we're after the same thing. But again, a little hard to believe that the DEA agent is just gonna let him go after Fonda. Like they wouldn't have shown a picture of Wilson to the witness from the warehouse shooting. At which point, the witness would ID Wilson, and Wilson gets arrested. But no, the DEA is gonna let him go after Fonda, and then after all the dead bodies pile up at Big Sur, they're gonna let him fly out of the country. Yeah right. Again, pretty hard to believe.
So, while I think this is a flawed movie from a plot believability standpoint, it still has many interesting and poignant scenes, and I was able to overlook the flaws because I was entertained and riveted throughout the movie.
Some of the scenes are hard to believe. Like the warehouse scene. Why would he walk into that so unprepared? In the real world, they would have just killed him, but then the movie would have only been 20 minutes long. This was the scene that caused me to hate the movie when I first saw it. But this time I overlooked it.
What moved me on the second watching was the subtlety and the sadness in the movie. You feel the sadness of him not being able to be with his daughter as she grew up.
As for Peter Fonda, he's just annoying. The way he's cleaning his teeth with the toothpick, and the annoying conversations he has with his girlfriend are pathetic and painful to watch. But maybe thats the point. Also, the two pool-playing hit men are annoying and Soderbergh attempts to make them interesting is a little over-elaborate. Like the scene where the one guy is talking to trash about all the actors and extras as he watches the movie set.
But the scene with the DEA agent at the end accidentally slipping the file to Wilson was an interesting scene. Wilson's whole speech there was pretty interesting when he tells the DEA agent - I think we're after the same thing. But again, a little hard to believe that the DEA agent is just gonna let him go after Fonda. Like they wouldn't have shown a picture of Wilson to the witness from the warehouse shooting. At which point, the witness would ID Wilson, and Wilson gets arrested. But no, the DEA is gonna let him go after Fonda, and then after all the dead bodies pile up at Big Sur, they're gonna let him fly out of the country. Yeah right. Again, pretty hard to believe.
So, while I think this is a flawed movie from a plot believability standpoint, it still has many interesting and poignant scenes, and I was able to overlook the flaws because I was entertained and riveted throughout the movie.