HollywoodLand could be made in to three different, perhaps better, films. There is the story of Ben Affleck's character, Diane Lane's, and Adrien Brody's. Each one is quite compelling. I would prefer to see the Adrien Brody one: as an inept, disfunctional 50s detective he was quite brilliant. The problem with HollywoodLand was that it couldn't decide between these three stories. Affleck was as good as he's been since Good Will Hunting, but still nothing compared to his co-stars. Some of the dialogue was really quite bad, stilted and grandiloquent, and the characters we've seen before many times. One thing that always aggravates me about period films is that everything from the age (cars, clothes etc.) is so clean, whereas in realilty it would all be dirty and used - this picture was particularly pristine. But otherwise this is a good, challenging film. It refuses to satisfy its audience - people along from me asked 'is that it?' when the credits began to roll. I have to emphasise, however, that from halfway through I was thinking of a movie just about Adrien Brody's character and how much fun it would be.
(Tune in tomorrow for Bomb Scare On My Bus)
