TALK ABOUT MOVIES

2004 Talk About Movies
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Contents © 2004
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

TALK ABOUT MOVIES
March 2004

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Directed by Clint Eastwood. Starring Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon. 137 minutes, Color, USA, English. In theaters. (Not for children or weak-hearted adults.)

Matthew: If anybody is in need of Christian transformation, it's Dave. He never recovered; that's why he talks about "the boy who escaped from wolves, who lives in another world." He longs to be someone other than who he is -- he admires vampires, who are undead and free of their old lives.

Ernie: Jimmy starts off as a shopkeeper who looks like he's had a rough past. But more and more of his past is revealed, until it comes back to him completely.

Matthew: He tries to go straight for the sake of another person, but once she's gone, he reverts.

* * *

Matthew: Sean achieves a measure of salvation. He looks death in the face, and he sees what's become of Dave and Jimmy, and he thinks, "I'm getting out of here." He realizes that he needs to humble himself to get love back.

Ernie: The other two are still at the scene of the original crime, the abduction and pedophilia. But if the purpose of the movie is to show that that heinous crime damaged all of them, and that it's the seed of everything that follows, the implausibility of the simultaneous, unrelated murders, which are the catalysts for the plot, detracts from the point.