Bold Movie Making – Masters at Work. This movie will absolutely not appeal to action junkies and comedy addicts. Does it leave you with a warm and fuzzy feeling at the end and will you want to bring your family together to watch it? Most definitely not. Is it a thriller or a drama? Well not really, but it was a thrill for me to watch it.
This movie will interest people who watch an inordinate number of movies or people who regularly read good books. Anyone who can appreciate a product of either medium when that product makes you think throughout and till the end will likely enjoy this movie. It is challenging and will make you feel like you are investing time in art, an investment I believe pays off handsomely. It is deeply engaging.
It is not entertaining in the traditional sense but it is an experience you will not soon forget and a spectacle you will not see again for a long long time if in fact you ever do. The author Cormac McCarthy, a hot novelist, whose projects appear to always have a line-up of producers wanting the movie property rights, wrote this play "The Sunset Limited". It's about two men having a discussion; the whole story takes place in a single barren apartment.
Who would want to make a movie about that? I suppose the play would require superb dialogue, the likes of which keeps you interested early on and does not let off as time passes; it would also have to feature two actors who are masters at their craft and have theatrical and movie experience. The actors are Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L.Jackson. You see where I'm going! The topic of the discussion is God and the value of faith on the one side, as perceived by a very smart and likable evangelical; on the polar side is the well known existentialist's point of view and the usual despair and angst associated with that philosophy, as argued by an equally smart professor in full possession of the expected intellect. If that does not sound like a commercial hit, I don't know what !
Of course, I could argue that it takes a certain amount of self indulgence for an actor/director to make this movie, but I would not be sincere. I enjoyed the repartee between Samuel L. Jackson and Tommy Lee Jones way too much to do so, but I've read hints to that effect in other reviews and critics. If there was self indulgence on Jones part, I don't care.
Tommy Lee Jones, well acquainted with that author's work as he starred in McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men", was fortunate to get a shot at this property and he had the fortitude to bring it onto the screen. The concept is not without merit. By making a movie, Jones can use all that this form of art has to offer to enhance the experience the play would have to offer to start with. Close-ups, calculated angles and visual perspectives, scene environment sound effects, all are used to bring us a performance the play in a theatre could not quite deliver as effectively. How many people have seen or will see the play? How many will get the chance to do so? How many will watch the movie? Because T.L. Jones made this movie, the number answered in the first two instances will be greater. As for the third question, whatever the number is, that is the number of people who can be thankful for Jones fortitude.
Albert Camus and J.-P. Sartre would grin appreciatively at Jones delivery of McCarthy's words. All good and enthusiastic Christians would applaud Jackson's character's valiant effort to save the sinner. Jones and Jackson are the perfect choice for the two characters; they masterfully convey their respective character's feelings, never over doing it. No matter how often the following cliché has been heard before, it has never ringed as true for me as it does with these two actors and this movie: "It's as if the lines had been written just for them."
I read some thirty reviews of the movie, the ones preceding mine, and I read many critics; I hope and trust I did not repeat anyone else's unique observations but am sure I am repeating in my own way that this movie is a brilliant film and that Jackson and Jones are at their best here.
This movie will interest people who watch an inordinate number of movies or people who regularly read good books. Anyone who can appreciate a product of either medium when that product makes you think throughout and till the end will likely enjoy this movie. It is challenging and will make you feel like you are investing time in art, an investment I believe pays off handsomely. It is deeply engaging.
It is not entertaining in the traditional sense but it is an experience you will not soon forget and a spectacle you will not see again for a long long time if in fact you ever do. The author Cormac McCarthy, a hot novelist, whose projects appear to always have a line-up of producers wanting the movie property rights, wrote this play "The Sunset Limited". It's about two men having a discussion; the whole story takes place in a single barren apartment.
Who would want to make a movie about that? I suppose the play would require superb dialogue, the likes of which keeps you interested early on and does not let off as time passes; it would also have to feature two actors who are masters at their craft and have theatrical and movie experience. The actors are Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L.Jackson. You see where I'm going! The topic of the discussion is God and the value of faith on the one side, as perceived by a very smart and likable evangelical; on the polar side is the well known existentialist's point of view and the usual despair and angst associated with that philosophy, as argued by an equally smart professor in full possession of the expected intellect. If that does not sound like a commercial hit, I don't know what !
Of course, I could argue that it takes a certain amount of self indulgence for an actor/director to make this movie, but I would not be sincere. I enjoyed the repartee between Samuel L. Jackson and Tommy Lee Jones way too much to do so, but I've read hints to that effect in other reviews and critics. If there was self indulgence on Jones part, I don't care.
Tommy Lee Jones, well acquainted with that author's work as he starred in McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men", was fortunate to get a shot at this property and he had the fortitude to bring it onto the screen. The concept is not without merit. By making a movie, Jones can use all that this form of art has to offer to enhance the experience the play would have to offer to start with. Close-ups, calculated angles and visual perspectives, scene environment sound effects, all are used to bring us a performance the play in a theatre could not quite deliver as effectively. How many people have seen or will see the play? How many will get the chance to do so? How many will watch the movie? Because T.L. Jones made this movie, the number answered in the first two instances will be greater. As for the third question, whatever the number is, that is the number of people who can be thankful for Jones fortitude.
Albert Camus and J.-P. Sartre would grin appreciatively at Jones delivery of McCarthy's words. All good and enthusiastic Christians would applaud Jackson's character's valiant effort to save the sinner. Jones and Jackson are the perfect choice for the two characters; they masterfully convey their respective character's feelings, never over doing it. No matter how often the following cliché has been heard before, it has never ringed as true for me as it does with these two actors and this movie: "It's as if the lines had been written just for them."
I read some thirty reviews of the movie, the ones preceding mine, and I read many critics; I hope and trust I did not repeat anyone else's unique observations but am sure I am repeating in my own way that this movie is a brilliant film and that Jackson and Jones are at their best here.