Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Paynbob It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Robert J. Maxwell A large American population is devastated by a hurricane and are looking forward to getting their insurance. Alas, there is no insurance. Matt Damon, in a serious performance, is part of an insurance-company scam. They parked all the premiums in a Swiss bank and then ran off with the cash to Cambodia. Why Cambodia?, you ask -- and it's a sensible question. I don't know. There is actually nothing IN Cambodia except large statues overgrown with vines, monkeys, and dynamite grass. Maybe they don't have an extradition treaty, and that's important because the FBI is now on to Damon and his two partners in crime, the always interesting Stellan Skarsgård and leader James Caan, giving a decent performance.There are millions of dollars involved but there is also a problem. Caan, affable, back-patting, hasn't paid the other two off and is determined to sink the millions into a gambling casino surrounded by the mountainous blocks of a grand hotel. "It could be the new LAS VEGAS!", Caan exclaims about this white elephant deep in the jungle. He must never have seen Werner Herzog's "Fitzcarraldo." The local situation is complicated, as it is in most third-world countries, and Damon, who both wrote and directed, captures much of the squalor and corruption. Only occasionally does he try to do tricks with the photography -- a fast moving sky, a sun that rises out of the horizon like a UFO. Mostly he sticks to the usual conventions. Danib -- a New York insurance salesman -- rescues Natasha McElhone from an abuser and manages to kick the crap out of a war horse of a street thug. (He must be an unusually capable insurance salesman.)Nice local color. Plenty of statues and monkeys. But they aren't woven too well into the story. Natasha McElhone takes him to some historical site -- really BIG statues -- and there follows some kind of post-Hippie love-in, with people dancing around and waving flaming torches and drinking. "The Third Man" gave us the Mozart Cafe, the Prada, and the Cloaca Maxima but didn't go out of its way to do it.It's confusing and clumsy but once in a while, almost by accident, it hits the right note. The first aerial shot we see is impressive -- exotic Phnom Penh, the city buried under a tawny cloud of smog. Portent of things to come.

wes-connors "After a bogus insurance scam sparks an FBI investigation, front man Jimmy Cremmins flees to Cambodia to meet his mentor, Marvin. But Jimmy gets more than he bargained for when - against a backdrop of raw, dangerous beauty and ever-shifting loyalties - Marvin draws him into a web of deceit and murder from which there may be no way out!" according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.Matt Dillon promisingly joins the multi-tasking actor ranks, as the director, star, and co-writer of "City of Ghosts". The film's main strength is its striking Southeast Asian scenery. Mr. Dillon and photographer Jim Denault make Cambodia look darkly beautiful, with the film's soundtrack music helping to set the mood.Father figuring James Caan (as Marvin), cool blonde Natascha McElhone (as Sophie), and baby wielding Gérard Depardieu (as Emile) try to keep up with Kem Sereyvuth (as Sok) and the local crowd. Stellan Skarsgård (as Joseph Kaspar) is a stand-out. Unfortunately, he story is relatively weak.***** City of Ghosts (9/10/02) Matt Dillon ~ Matt Dillon, James Caan, Stellan Skarsgard, Natascha McElhone

mstomaso Matt Dillon co-authored, directed and starred in this medium-budget drama- thriller about a front-man (Dillon) and a con-man (Caan) connected by more than just an apprenticeship. The directing is very good, and the finished product is mostly polished and well paced. The acting is superb, with Caan, Dillon, Depardieu and Kem Sereyvuth giving memorable performances. The story line is also good, though not structurally original, and the script only fails in a few places. Part of the problem with the script may come from the fact that Dillon attempted to pack so much material into it - simultaneously making the protagonist a fully realized and sympathetic character and causing some important plot points such as those illustrating the developing romance between Dillon and McElhone to appear as little more than distracting loose threads.Dillon and Caan have been working together since Dillon was nine years old. Both are con-artists pulling off elaborate insurance and development schemes, and Caan is Dillon's mentor. After one of these schemes goes bad, Dillon flees the US to try to find Caan in P'Nom Phen, Cambodia, where most of the story takes place. Just as Dillon manages to catch up with his mentor, things start to go much much worse, and the audience is caught in a shell game, wondering, to the end, who is conning who and how bad it might really get. All throughout this, Dillon's character is explored, developed, and grown into somebody markedly different from who he was at the beginning of the film. And the film ends up as much a character study as a thriller.Some will likely find the lazy pace of this film grating. Others will be annoyed by the dialog-driven plot and the frequent pastiches of strangely alienating Cambodian scenery. This is a film which fits squarely in the independent art film tradition, and so, it won't appeal to most Hollywood action and crime drama fans. For my part, I was mesmerized by the soundtrack and Cambodian imagery, almost to the point that I no longer cared about the plot.I'll look forward to Mr. Dillon's next film.

kalapov I've seen the movie "blindly" (citing one of the comments) and the feeling was for story not so good but having excellent "screen life" – the picture was not boring, with VERY good camera (do you remember how the camera was jumping intriguingly just for a part of second on various objects, over tiny details and fugitive images suggesting the plot). The song of Marvin was impressive and highlighting. Depardieu is notable as usual. The love thread is banal. For Cambodia - yet its tragedy remains unrevealed for the screen and stories like this remain only amusing except the real scenery and original faces. It's worth to see and to think.