Simon works in an Art Gallery, as an auctioneer. And his form of employment could possibly help with a little problem that he has...a problem with a certain gambling debt, which is spiralling out of control. In order to clear his money worries, he goes to a Crook, Frank, where Simon can have his money troubles sorted, and Frank gains access to a rather expensive painting.
The painting in question is a rare piece, and is expected to sell for £25 million. With everything synchronized, all goes to plan, the heist takes place, the staff secure the painting, and transfer to a secure drop box, only it will be intercepted by Frank.
All goes swimmingly, til Frank gets the painting home and discovers an empty frame. Understandably he is a little annoyed by this. To make matters worse, during the interception he had to hit Simon on the head with his rifle, and Simon is now suffering from a rather unfortunate bout of amnesia, and has no idea where the he has hidden the painting.
Medical opinion is that no medicine can return the memory loss, and it may take considerable time, but another option is hypnosis. So they find a hypnosis expert, who they hope can retrieve the information they need and get back the painting.
There is very little involvement from the Police in the film, they either believe that the painting is long gone, and will not be recovered, and that it possibly may even be an inside job involving the Gallery manager, but none of that is really pursued.
Ultimately the film looks what unravels once Simon is in the Doctor's chair. What is real and what is in his mind. The strands of the story start to merge together as more is revealed. Did Simon outsmart the crooks? Will he survive to enjoy the painting? Is there a connection between the therapist and Frank? Do we really care?
After an engaging start, the film soon descends into a murky mess of confusion. All the lead characters have no redeeming qualities, which makes you not care about them, and ultimately the film drags. The film also has a rather bizarre ending...which I will not spoil here.
The film is well photographed, as one has come to expect from Director Boyle, and another of his trademarks is a well composed score, and again here he delivers, but sadly they are about the only two fields where I can compliment.
One of shining examples of British acting, James McAvoy is now on his second film in a row that has failed to be worthy of both my time and money (the other being "Welcome to the Punch"), and hope that he can regain the kind of high quality films that he deserves. Vincent Cassel is ok as French crook Frank.
Started well, but the film soon put me into a trance......5 out of 10
No comments:
Post a Comment