Catangro
After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.
Mandeep Tyson
The acting in this movie is really good.
Nicole
I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.
chaos-rampant
I was expecting straight-to-video fodder here the kind you watch stupefied because it happened to be on late at night. It revealed itself to be a taut little thing that tries to create its own world.It was caught in the Tarantino craze so we have small talk about cartoons, movies and music peppered throughout. It has, eventually, a heist in animal masks gone awry that makes poor sense and cookie cutter resolutions where we drive around to settle scores with a bunch of characters that were left hanging so that it's all neat by the end.For a while it manages to strike some spark, most of it in the first half.A man who we understand is trying to be upstanding while everyone around him is fickle, but he has a blind spot for gambling. It's not about the money, for him it seems to be a warped way of measuring himself up against the universe, challenging the fates to pave whatever way they have in store so he can have a mandate to abide by. He makes a mess, owing everyone in town, but won't take the easy way out because a bet is a bet; opportunity for self-worth. So when the fates shuffle the deck and he's dealt the role of hapless stooge who loses everything, he goes through it with stoic persistence to settle debts. Ray Liotta is as good as he was for Scorsese in a similar twitchy role as fates conspire to crush him.It's no Asphalt Jungle where the heist is the ritual that opens us from anxiety to dreamlike visions, but it beats Reservoir Dogs.Noir Meter: 2/4 | Neo-noir or post noir? Neo
screenman
This was one of my (very) lucky dips into the supermarket bran-tub. It was just 50p. But it starred Ray Liotta and Angelica Huston, so it had to be worth a punt. I had never heard of it before.Big surprise. Liotta plays a detective on the skids. He's basically a decent character who is fatally flawed by the vice of gambling. We follow his life as - by turns - it deteriorates into a chaos driven by mounting debt. He has cop colleagues who are even less reliable than himself. Collectively, they present a bitterly amoral face of modern-day policing in Phoenix. This is not a feel-good movie.In crisis, he recruits 3 confidantes to rob a familiar hood, in order to pay off his debts and something to spare. It turns into slaughter. Their senior officer becomes aware of their behaviour but as well as reporting it, decides to cut a slice of the action for himself in a brutal business of corruption, double-cross and murder. There is no happy-ending.The dour characters are set against often gloomy weather and nocturnal activity, enhancing the movie's down-beat texture. Even in the desert sun they are often cast into dark relief by the harsh light.Script is suitably cynical and well-chosen. All the players fit their characters well. Anthony Lapaglia, Daniel Baldwin, Jeremy Piven et al, give excellent returns. There's no bad egg in the carton. Lighting, sound and editing are all up to the job. Four men walking abreast to a common destiny is a very old theme in cinema. We've seen it in 'Gunfight at the OK Corral', 'The Wild Bunch', 'Resevoir Dogs', and probably others.This movie lacks that touch of comic irony that lights up even the grimmest of Tarantino movies, rendering - I think - a greater sense of realism. It's dark and uncompromising; it especially reminds me of 'The Grifters', which also starred Ms Huston. I can't say better than that.This movie is definitely a collectors' item. Highly recommended.
zfiany
A unique movie indeed which revolves around the life of a person who believes in luck. Usually people are divided into two groups: 1)those who believe in luck (the smart ones who really know what life is about) and 2)those who pretend to be smart and claim that they can make their own destiny. Phoenix is the movie which has the right answer for group 2.It is a brilliant story with brilliant acting from Liotta. The movie successfully manages to tackle the subject of luck and destiny without boring us. You can see it clearly that the actors are making their best to make you enjoy the movie and they all give you the taste of Scorcese's movies. You, at many points, in the movie feel as if you are watching Deniro and Pesci yet in a different context.I don't want to ruin the plot for you but you will definitely like this movie.
JoeytheBrit
This is one of those films that somehow falls under the radar and languishes undeservedly in obscurity. In a fairly convoluted plot, Ray Liotta plays an honest cop with a gambling addiction who comes up with a plan to rob a loan shark in order to pay off his debts. He enlists the aid of three of his colleagues (Daniel Baldwin, Jeremy Piven and the unappreciated Anthony LaPaglia, who gives a film-stealing performance here) unaware that one is sleeping with another's wife and is under investigation.Although the story unfolds a little too slowly at times, writer Eddie Richey's script has a lot of depth, lending some diversity to a bunch of what could otherwise have been genre-stereotypical tough guys. The quality of the writing is high, with some off-the-wall dialogue and unique insight into such diverse subjects as King Kong, Three-on-a-match, Looney Tunes cartoons, and Dostoyevsky's gambling addiction. Brit director Danny Cannon creates some arresting images (an alternately sun-scorched and rain-sodden Phoenix in monsoon season) and manages to create loads of atmosphere despite often selecting extreme close-ups to emphasise the thoughts and emotions of the characters. There are no weak performances but, together with LaPaglia, the ever-dependable Ray Liotta stands out in the lead role.The ending is probably weaker than it should be because it takes a little too long for all the strands to be neatly tied, but this is still an impressive piece of entertainment that deserves to be better known.
