double whammy

Ha ha: here's a surprise - more film reviews!

Told you I was bored and lazy over the weekend, didn't I?

So here's a double whammy of film reviews on consecutive days, and in more ways that one as this is about two films.

devil's advocate

First up is Devil's advocate.

This starred Keanu Reeves and Al Pacino and I was surprised at how good it was.

I've never really rated Reeves as an actor - he's always seemed very wooden to me - but his performance here was actually pretty good. His accent, which is supposed to be deep south, is rubbish and slips all over the place, but otherwise he's kinda convincing.

The basic plot - as the name suggests - is that Reeves ends up as the lawyer to the Devil. This is sort of a twist, I guess, but it's not the film's proper twist. It has two of those and the first is the most successful.

Not wanting to spoiler too much, but the final twist is one of those that a lot of people hate, although to be fair it also leaves us with a sort of anti-twist at the very end to counter that, but still it wasn't a particularly good way to resolve it.

So yeah, I wasn't expecting much but it was actually pretty good.

insomnia

The second film was the reverse - I was expecting a lot, but it kinda failed to deliver.

The basic problem was I didn't really buy into the insomnia thing. The idea was that Pacino's character goes up north to Alaska to help solve a murder (this in itself seems a bit odd, but setting it aside). When you get sufficiently far up North you get that weird effect where the sun never sets.

The idea then was that Pacino can't sleep because of all this bright light. Well, okay, I'm not that much of a luddite that I can't poke out some hidden meanings - the real reason for the continued insomnia after the first night is guilt.

"What I didn't buy into was Pacino's character's attempts to solve he problem.

First off, he's in a hotel that apparently doesn't have any curtains. That has to be a major clanger - no curtains at all so far up North? Nah. Also, they would have had proper black-out curtains that let no light through.

Then he tries to solve it by putting brown tape over the windows. Only he leaves some cracks... but then doesn't cover them over. He also only puts one layer on.

For some super-genius crime-solving cop, he's being a bit dumb here, but okay. What else?

Oh yeah, he doesn't go and get any sleeping pills. Surely even Alaska has pharmacies selling sleeping pills - even just the natural herbal ones.

He also doesn't buy one of those face masks. He also doesn't try getting so hammered he passes out.

Now as I say, the real thing is the guilt, but it's like if he'd still stayed awake having tried that stuff I'd have bought it. Not trying any of it just makes him seem dumb and hence the whole film (being based on how smart he is) falls apart.