Disjointed Digression

Silver City

You would think that a cast that included two Academy Award Winners as part of a really good ensemble cast would be better than average. Sadly it was not. Silver City wasn’t shitty. Some of the performances were really good. Chris Cooper as the dimwitted Governor candidate (a not so embellished version of George W Bush) was very good. Richard Dreyfuss played the “by any means necessary” campaign manager perfectly evil. Tim Roth, although not seen alot in the movie was very much the scruffy former reporter now underground webmaster. Thora Birch was….eye candy. Billy Zane, looking snappy as ever filled the role of lobbyist well, he oozed sliminess. Kris Kristofferson played the evil corporation owner to a T, subdued evil with a menacing charm. I think the best performance was by Sal Lopez. I’ve never heard of him before, but he reminds me of a Hispanic Willem Dafoe.
Now about this movie… I saw a trailer for it on the Stander DVD. I remember (or mis-remember maybe) that the trailer made it look like a dark comedy of errors about a George W Bush type of political figure. (I say G W Bush type because he is not the only politician that is a moron). The movie is a statement about a lot of things. Too many things, I think. I think John Sayles (the writer/director) was trying to spotlight too many problems in the American sociopolitical climate.
The main character is an investigator played by Danny Huston. Huston does a good job, but the character is wishy-washy and basically a loser. I never connected with him. I guess he is supposed to be an “everyman” but I thought the audience was supposed to connect and empathize for the “everyman” and in the end root for him. I never got that from Danny (the main characters name is Danny, how convenient)
The other thing about this movie that I didn’t like was that it’s not escapism. Its way too much like real life. Especially the ending. I would have expected that from a “based on a true story movie”. Maybe I’m just a bit miffed about being taken by the trailer. At least it’s not as bad as when I was taken by Falling Down. Falling Down‘s trailer looked like an average joe snapped and took justice into his own hands for a day. But it turns out the guy was a nutcase to begin with. That bugged the shit out of me. I felt I’d been lied to, and more than usual by Hollywood.
So all in all Silver Citywas not total shit, but nothing to write home (or blog so much??) about. If you are more of a politico than I am you might enjoy it more than I did. The plus side, good but short performances by good actors. The negative a bit preachy, non escapist story. My recommendation, borrow it from someone who netflixed it or, if your local library lends movies try there.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 23rd, 2005 at 9:53 am and is filed under Movie Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.