Mata-os Suavemente

Um filme de gangsters com um elenco de estrelas que procura uma originalidade elevada. Mas os seus personagens (exceto o bom Brad) são esquisitas, nem respeitáveis, nem hilariantes. E os diálogos carecem de divertimento e de linhas com propósito (exceto a última linha de Brad). O que é mais interessante no filme é o encaixamento da história dum grupo de existências criminosas sem valor, nas palavras de George W. Bush ou Barrack Obama dos discursos televisivos sobre como a América é e será grande. Os jogos visuais e o slow-motion dão ao filme um selo de exclusividade, mas isso não é nenhuma novidade, e francamente, ficam melhor em Os Vingadores. A câmara montada na porta do carro, copiando o seu movimento de abertura e fecho, já estava nos filmes de Tarantino (e só Deus sabe onde ele a roubou). As mudanças divertidas na narrativa são agradáveis, mas, em retrospetiva, dão um toque de irrelevância (o personagem de Gandolfini e a sua importância na história), e, de qualquer forma, no final apontam para a solução que já assumimos ao olhar para o cartaz do filme. (24/04/2020)

Modern-day realism in an old-school blazer. Dominik changes the rules of storytelling, while also balancing the human and political angles. Bush and Obama are depicted often as ridiculous figures thanks to their speeches about unity and faith in the stars and stripes in this game dominated by Pitt’s Cogan. The actors are perfect, the message short and sharp. Everything stands on the last few lines. America is not a country, it’s a business. Now fucking pay me. (02/01/2013)

Rebellious to the core, incredibly polished, skillfully directed, with a mature script. The story may be trivial, but the political subtext is harsh and uncompromising, just like the brawls and wide-open violence. After a long time, a gangster film with guts, which knows what it wants to say and literally screams it to the world. (06/07/2013)

A solid gangster movie. It’s not boring, but I can’t say it’s anything extraordinary. I didn’t get to know enough about any of the characters to really care for them, and it seems that a character that is introduced at the beginning doesn’t appear until the end just to kill someone. Given that in the end they stick a couple of minutes with some sort of message, my complaint could be disregarded by the fact that it’s clearly intentional. But come on! For me, nothing to write home about, no matter how I look at it. Points for the slow-motion shootout in the rain and the scene with the stoned dialogue. Otherwise, the most interesting thing about this film are the elegant posters. (30/12/2012)

It’s a bit boring, but you still get the bad boy Brad Pitt, who’ll get his head spinning trying to solve a pretty complicated case. Anyways, since the story isn’t that interesting, at least the setting is. It’s been a long time, if ever, since I saw a movie dealing with a financial crisis as urgently as this one does. But I guess it really works this way with thieves. I guess it was supposed to mean that since people don’t have much money in a crisis, people buy much less and the loot isn’t worth much, either. The score certainly wasn’t great here, which the thieves got to understand pretty quickly. (10/10/2014)