This is a very highly reviewed movie, regarded as top notch thriller. To me, it had some good elements, but overall I didn’t care for it.
Good points:
1. The first 3/4’s of the movie are well done: great directing, acting, writing, well paced.
2. The movie is implicitly anti-political correctness. The primary negative character successfully operates on the premise that mainstream media and its public is very easy to predict and manipulate, willing to swallow any rot-gut so long as it is an political correct wrapper. I agree with this.
Bad points:
1. The movie falls apart in the last 1/4. The events become unbelievable and I completely lost the theatrical illusion, and all investment in the fate of the characters. Perhaps the (wildly successful) book made the events more believable.
2. Even if the whole movie worked, it is basically a character study of a bad person, ala “All About Eve”. Such movies can be quite valuable, and I am glad I watched them after it’s over, but I really don’t enjoy them much, and I only want to see them when I am in the right mood; I didn’t know this going to the movie, and would have picked something else if I had known
3. The movie had some extremely crude use of obscene language (not the words themselves, but the sentiment expressed). I don’t think such dialog is necessary to establish even the most rotten character, and I see no value in my ever having heard it. I didn’t feel that way when I was younger but I think 1) the movies are getting worse, and 2) raising a daughter is having an effect on me.
