Cos Reviews: “The Town” and “Salt”

Cos

Originally started on February 24th, shows how busy I’ve been…

I have to get a name for my reviews, I’m tired of them just being Cos Reviews, especially seeing that I stole that one from the Ato Reviews (which I coincidentally named myself, so is that really stealing?). Any ideas anyone?

Anyway, as you can see by the title, this will be reviews on both “The Town” and “Salt”.

As always: SPOILER WARNINGS!

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Cos Reviews: The Town

First, let me just start by saying that I never really had a desire to see this movie…which is a damn shame because I liked Ben Affleck’s first directorial effort, which was Gone Baby Gone which came out in 2007 and it was awesome and I highly recommend watching that movie, as I do this one. The Town is about a bank robber, played by Ben Affleck, who is born and raised in the bank robbery capital of America, the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston and he is trying to get out of “the business” and this is his journey towards that. I don’t know why I didn’t want to see this movie, it was great. Great action scenes. Great direction by Affleck (who in my opinion will be remembered best as a director, in the coming years, than as an actor) with the addition of some great shoot out moments and chase scenes.  You want to see a great chase scene, look no further than the tight and narrow streets of Boston. Why haven’t we seen this before? It reminds me of chase scenes from European cities.

 

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I guess the reason why I didn’t want to see it in the first place is the fact that they wear stupid masks and costumes to rob the banks. I mean, I get it, but come one now, really? Just look at the above poster, they are dressed up as nuns. But I got past that just by watching the scene. Maybe also because I was remembering the opening scene from The Dark Knight and how great that scene in itself was. But this is not The Dark Knight and The Town can stand on its own two feet. I know, that is a pretty shitty reason why not to watch a movie, but there are plenty of movies that I haven’t seen for barely a reason…some of which I actually own on DVD just never popped them into the DVD player.

To add to that, this story is a pretty standard story as far as bank robbing movies go, but they make it from the perspective of Doug (Affleck) who is in charge of “dealing with” Claire (Rebecca Hall) who was the bank manager that they held hostage at the beginning of the movie. Instead of dealing with her, he falls for her and has to come to terms that the person he is starting to have feelings for may have to one day turn him in. Another story that we’ve seen before but done very well here.

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Doing a little bit of research for this movie I found out on IMDB that Affleck’s original cut of the movie was a mind numbing 4 hours long. I’d like to see that cut of the movie, I know it would be a raw form of the final film, but I’d love to see more of the novel, perhaps there were things that were ultimately cut out due to timing issues but would have overall made sense and would have allowed for the story to have meshed better. Not that there was anything wrong with the story, I’m just always curious at what we could have seen versus what we did end up seeing.

 

This movie was one of the last movies that Pete Postlethwaite was in. He acted in such movies as The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Romeo + Juliet and even had the part of Cillian Murphy’s deceased father in last summers blockbuster Inception. He may not have been a money drawing superstar, but he was definitely a great character actor who had multiple roles over the course of a five decade career. Dare I say he would be a great addition to Mother Brain’s Underrated Actor Specials, this time with a definitive beginning and an end.

In closing on The Town, let me just say if you are into a very well produced and directed movie with some great action scenes and good writing, I recommend seeing The Town. You can’t go wrong with this movie and I promise you it is an enjoyable time.

I

Cos Reviews: Salt

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I love these moments where I can compare two completely different and very contrasting movies. Where I didn’t think I would like The Town, I thought that perhaps I would enjoy Salt, but alas it was not to be. I had no real intentions of seeing this movie in the theater, I figured it was another action espionage type of movie and was hoping for something typical. This was far from typical and I don’t know if I’ve met anyone that has, first of all seen the movie, second, if they have seen the movie, I don’t think they’ve liked it very much. But I will say, I didn’t care for it at all.

This was one of the most confusing movies I’ve seen in a long time, I know they did it all on purpose, but I didn’t expect them to completely confuse the hell out of me to the point that I didn’t know which end was up. At the end of the movie I just didn’t care. Kind of like my upcoming review of Dwayne Johnson’s return to the action genre Faster, they didn’t give me anything or anyone to root for. Is she good? Is she bad? Whose side is she on? I didn’t think the filmmakers did a great job of setting her up as a likable person, let alone invested enough time in making us care about Evelyn Salt. She comes across as a very pompous and arrogant person who knows way too much about getting away from the authorities (I can’t even put good guys here because I don’t know if they were good or not!) and blowing things up.

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I mean seriously (and you were warned about SPOILERS above) in the middle of the movie she crashes the funeral of a Vice President at a Cathedral and no one can stop her. She is like a one man (or woman) swat team (a term I’ve loved since watching the making of Batman Forever back in the day–1995) that no one can stop. You mean to tell me the U.S. doesn’t have someone like Salt that they can toss against her. At the very least would someone please pull out a bazooka and send a rocket launcher at her? I mean, how freaking difficult is it to kill one person?

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By the middle of the movie I had invested so little time actually caring about her because I didn’t quite know what was what I didn’t honestly care if she lived or died. I didn’t believe that she loved her husband, I didn’t believe she was loyal to the Soviet or American cause. I really felt like she was out for herself. I’m still confused as to why she would go through all the trouble of doing all of that damage if her final intention was to go and stop all the other agents that are like her. Couldn’t she have just told the Americans that? I don’t know, to me it just didn’t make any sense. And the action in the movie was overly typical; nothing I haven’t seen before.

Also, I’m not a huge fan of Angelina Jolie. I don’t get her hotness factor. I’ve always been more of the “girl next door” type of guy and never understood the “girl that can bite my d**k off” type of guy. I know that anyone who uses her, especially in an action movie, wants to place her in the “hottest” positions and situations possible, but there was one person she kills at the end of the movie that the shot neither impressed me or turned me on. By that point I was so irate at not knowing what was going on I wanted to punch my TV screen.

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The movie ends with Salt getting away (and by this point if you haven’t heeded the warnings about SPOILERS don’t come complaining) and thus leading to another installment in a franchise. I for one hope that they do not continue with these movies. I don’t even think I want to think anymore about Salt. Total waste of time. It may not have been the worst movie I’ve ever seen but it did essentially piss me off to the point that I will not recommend it to anyone.

And, so, unless you feel otherwise, and please let me know what you think or thought about this movie, my final thought is to not waste your time on this movie.

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