After hearing about (but not reading) the book I was a little excited for this film. Terrible let down. There is no real plot or even a narrative and I can't for the life of me understand why this gets placed under the Thriller genre. It is little more than a plodding collection of vignettes strung together with an inordinate number of slow-motion flashbacks. Seriously if just the flashbacks and montages were shown in realtime it would cut the runtime of this movie by half. Want to convey a memory of a happy family? Slow motion flashback of them kicking a ball in the yard. Angry family? Slow motion flashback of them yelling and punching. Repeat this over and over to fill the space where plot and character development would go.
The "trial" component feels forced as an unnecessary element (maybe to convince us it's a thriller?). There isn't one relationship in this movie we ever actually care about and, as if to add insult to injury, the star seems to magically reconcile a lifetime of bad choices in the last ten minutes! Too bad this was a really bad vehicle for some otherwise good talent.
The "trial" component feels forced as an unnecessary element (maybe to convince us it's a thriller?). There isn't one relationship in this movie we ever actually care about and, as if to add insult to injury, the star seems to magically reconcile a lifetime of bad choices in the last ten minutes! Too bad this was a really bad vehicle for some otherwise good talent.