>>Yes... and I'm impressed. They had the courage to have scenes longer than a second, to actually let their character speak more than just soundbites, to make it a damn near Russian movie. And yet it's not just another disneyesque sugarcoated WHS (warm human story). Though, quite unexpectedly, I felt bored at times, just because I was conditioned into the rapid fire cuts of today's movies. Didn't expect a story of this size in an American movie.
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>I was with you right up to the generalized swat at American movies at the end. The studios put out a lot of garbage these days, we agree about that, but there are also plenty of movies worth seeing.

Just wasn't lucky with the plenty.

There are too many overrides to what director may want to do: the actors are selected by their price (aka fame), not whether they fit the part; the locations are selected by their price (i.e. legal trouble with all the permits, ease of avoiding ads in the landscape); the script must have all the necessary ingredients in the proper proportion (we MUST have a good car chase, or at least one explosion with the main characters jumping to the camera in slow motion), at least enough of all of the above to make a catchy trailer.

The classic example is "The pledge" with Jack Nicholson - a really good movie, IMO, and actually a cheap one to make. There's absolutely no shooting, no car chases, no explosions, no violence. But there's one scene that the main character imagines for a moment, where he comes in, and sees the villain capturing a victim, and he sees himself barging in and shooting his way to the guy. Lasts no more than five seconds. Guess which scene was the most prominent in the trailer.

So how is one to know this would be a good movie? It's advertised as anything but what it really is.

>Here's another recommendation, now that you guys have my mind going a mile a minute about movies before 6 a.m. "Heat". Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino star, with Val Kilmer, Ashley Judd, Juliana Marguiles (sp.?), Tom Sizemore, Dennis Haystert, Ted Levine, and others in supporting roles. Oh, and Natalie Portman in a vivid secondary part. Michael Mann ("Miami Vice") directed and it has the distinctive Mann feel -- terrific background music, night scenes lit to high heaven, always the sense of something about to happen. To me it's a beautiful job of straddling the line between the old character-driven movies and the modern blockbuster imperative to Blow Things Up Real Good. The bank heist is a classic. An earlier robbery of an armored truck, planned to the last detail, is not bad, either.

>There are at least three classic scenes. The bank heist is one. The scene with DeNiro and Pacino in the coffee shop is another. The basic setup is DeNiro is a meticulous high end thief and Pacino is the L.A. cop and ex-Marine who is trying to catch him. Pacino's squad is after DeNiro's gang, DeNiro knows they know, and Pacino knows they know we know. Pacino pulls DeNiro over on an L.A. freeway and says let's go have a cup of coffee. What is striking about the ensuing scene is that they are so much alike. I won't spoil any more of it. One of my favorite scenes in the last 20 years.
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>The last scene between Ashley Judd and Val Kilmer is also a killer if you have an ounce of romanticism in your soul.

This all sounds so familiar, I think I've seen it. Definitely worth seeing again.