Before I begin, let me say that I chose the movie based on the following things: John Cusack, murder mystery set in late 1960's, John Cusack, muted pastel color treatments, nice pulpy quality, Macy Gray narrates and finally, John Cusack.
These things all far overpowered the fact that Zac Efron was one of the lead characters.
The general premise is this: Matthew Mcconaughey is Ward Jansen, a reporter who's made it his mission to find out what really happened the night the dirty town sheriff was murdered, allegedly by Hilary Van Wetter, played by John Cusack. Ward's brother, Jack (Zac Efron) comes along for the ride and ends up falling desperately for Nicole Kidman, who's unfortunately fallen in love with Van Wetter via letters she's written to him while he was in prison.
Nasty, sexy, vulgar, pulpy wackiness ensues. Seriously, there were scenes in this movie that made me more uncomfortable than the one with Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton in Monster's Ball. And much of it was hard to watch. Namely, John Cusack being a murderous, misogynistic dick. Granted, he was a well acted murderous, misogynistic dick - but I'd rather not see one of the loves of my life in that kinda light, ya know?
Also, Nicole Kidman's drippy, forced Southern accent barely veiled her actual Austrailan one.
But if you can get passed all that, it's actually not bad. The story line is juicy, the 60's-inspired clothes and set treatments offer a little eye candy, and seriously, by the end I kind of loved Zac Efron's character Jack. And not just because he spent a gratuitous amount of the movie in teeny tiny white briefs. Not to mention Macy Gray's character Anita was wonderful.
All in all, I'd consider it well worth the $1.20 I paid for it at RedBox.
xo.
Images courtesy of IMDB, Google Images, and tumblr
Going to have to skip this one, because I really just can't handle having my image of Lloyd Dobler tainted in this way.
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