Filming Locations: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Technical Specs
Runtime:|
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Trivia:
(April 2, 2013) To publicize the move, Shia LaBeouf and Robert Redford appearing in live online chat session, "Collaborators on Film", streamed by The New York Times. See more »
User Review
Halfway failed thriller
Rating: 6/10
I saw this film at the Ghent filmfestival 2012. It was not part of the
official selection nor the official competition section, but rather put
in a "miscellaneous" section called Previews.
A considerable part of the story line is about the contrast between a
resourceful young journalist who finds out interesting things on his
own devices, compared with the FBI continuously running behind the
facts. Both stories run in parallel, thereby creating some weak form of
tension, but not too much while it is obvious that the eager journalist
will win the race eventually. We've seen a plot model like this many
times before, and variants thereof in the form of an amateur detective
versus the police. In other words, not very original, but it works here
only to a certain degree. Some of the time I even found it a bit of a
stretch, wondering why the young journalist had so much luck in his
discoveries.
A more interesting topic is how the past comes back to bite our main
character. In his younger years when the underground movement where he
belonged to, undertook several illegal actions, each participant could
depend on the others to keep things secret. The anti-Vietnam movement
as of 30 years ago probably will not ring a bell with most modern
viewers, failing to appreciate how radical some such actions were at
the time. It went much further than the rather peaceful movements we
saw recently, like Occupy and the like. In other words: we would call
them "terrorists" nowadays. Placing bombs and killing adversaries were
tools of the trade, when deemed necessary in view of the greater good.
Our main character (Jim Grant, played by Robert Redford, starring in
his own movie) has a new identity since a failed bank robbery, where
people were killed and video images suggest that Jim shot someone in
the process. An eager young journalist happens to unravel some loose
ends, and partly finds out what has been hidden for more than 30 years.
This starts two parallel chases after Jim, one by the journalist (Ben
Shepard) and an other one by the FBI. Most of the time we see the FBI
always behind the facts (might be construed as intentional satire). The
route Jim follows as a fugitive, looks random at first sight, but in
fact rounds up a series of former team members to find out who really
did the killing he is still accused of. For spoiler's sake I won't go
further with summarizing the story line. The basic ingredients can be
derived from the above.
All in all, I found a lot to be desired for a movie labeled "thriller".
Indeed, there is a reasonable amount of tension throughout, where one
wonders what will happen next. However, I saw several things happen
that seem far fetched, too much for my taste. That applies to Jim's
route he follows as a refugee, as well as the hunt by journalist Ben.
Both are running far too smooth, a bit unrealistic given the
circumstances. When one looks for a thriller deservedly labeled as
such, I can think of several better choices.
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