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Like most in this thread, I found this an extremely compelling film whose moral and political ambivalence were its definite strengths. I know the leads are politically on the right, and it's suggested this film promotes conservative viewpoints, but it's hardly a tub-thumping pro-MAGA film. Most of us don't want films that give easy answers and this film certainly does not do that. The 150 mins plus zipped by, the characters and their motivations were well developed and knitted together well (and as others have said, the Jennifer Carpenter storyline was definitely a welcome balance to the rest of the film and handled sensitively). I also think it played out to a satisfactory conclusion. I'd say this is one of the strongest more recent mainstream Hollywood films.

Wasn't Zahler supposed to direct a film from another of his scripts, The Big Stone Grid?

It's been 4-5 years since his 3rd now.

Maltic wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2024 4:35 pm Wasn't Zahler supposed to direct a film from another of his scripts, The Big Stone Grid?

It's been 4-5 years since his 3rd now.

Zahler has something in the works, as listed here on his Goodreads profile of all the things he liked from last year.

Thanks!

I love the internet (sometimes).

I see "To Kill a Mockingbird" was among his favourite reads of 2023 so maybe it's a new adaptation of that book he has in the works.

Maltic wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2024 7:13 pm I see "To Kill a Mockingbird" was among his favourite reads of 2023 so maybe it's a new adaptation of that book he has in the works.

I certainly hope not (I assume you are joking.) His strength is as an original writer, and his troubling takes on race would do that novel, nor its already celebrated film adaptation, no good.

It's very strongly rumored that Ridley Scott's working on a Zahler western script. I think Scott is a blindingly stupid dullard, with an offputtingly slick and artificial style, but any Zahler script that makes it to production is good on me. Naturally I'd prefer he himself direct it, and make films more frequently.

I tried to give this movie a second chance after finding it abysmal the first time and liking Zahler's other work, but boy is it awful. Vaughn and particularly Gibson speak like Wes Anderson characters in a 'realist' world, and the racial commentary comes across as both too on-the-nose and confounding, as it's not always taking a racist worldview itself but postures hard in that direction at other moments, and to what end? I struggle to think of what we're supposed to get out of this movie, including as a bareknuckled, slow-tempered genre exercise. The acting, script, direction, pacing, and action are all varying levels of boring and cartoonish, the latter of which is an incredibly uneven approach to an otherwise (excruciatingly) 'grounded' film