Alicia I love this movie so much

Clevercell Very disappointing...

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

johndoechampionofthepeople This film is a masterpiece. The characters are transplanted from the 1899 novel McTeague by Frank Norris. This movie, however, does not tell the same story as that novel. It selects the setting of the final scenes of the novel, the desert, and it selects the novel's central theme of overpowering greed. It shows the conflict between the insanity of greed, embodied by Trina and the McTeagues, and the good-hearted man, Frank Norris. The final scene, where Trina looks off at her truck as it drives away, and she is now handcuffed to the dead Frank, delivers the punch line of the commentary of this story: that greed never gets you anywhere.Many people will find this film to be low quality or boring; however, read McTeague, then watch this film. If you do that, everything will fall into place.

pksky1 Since I don't recognize anyone in this film, I assume that it is a small time or low budget or some other small enterprise film with a major distributor. For such an unassuming movie, it has a lot of merits. The cinematography is really nice. The acting never falls behind the plot or the script which is a little threadbare. And the story and the characters have a rather original hard boiled reality to them.After renting movie after movie based on heavy promotion only to find myself scrambling for the fast forward, it was a pleasant change to just sit back and see a nicely told story.To see how the heavies do the same thing better see Dafoe and Sam Neil in "Victory"

Ms. Vyk WARNING: SPOILERS WITHINBased on some of these recommendations, I rented this movie over the weekend. I kept waiting for the "payoff." I kept waiting for Minnie Driver's Trina to get sun blistered like her cohorts. Why was her so complexion so creamy after growing up in the desert? This was so, so faulty and unbelievable. You never saw her with sunscreen (not that it would help in that desert sun!) Anyway, I thought she was a terrible actor. Was she trying to be seductive during the bellows scene when they were trying to solder the car part? She had the same deadpan expression on her face! And now I learn that Josh Brolin is her real life paramour??? My main frustration, however, are the loose ends. Just what happened the night her mother was supposed to run off with Marcus? Did Trina really shoot her mother? Didn't we see an earlier flashback where the mother shot Marcus after telling him neither she nor Trina was leaving with her? And what's up with the rocks-diamonds-switch? Who made the switch? Duster or Marcus? When? And, finally, just where the hell did Marcus put the diamonds? Did he swallow them? Or were they scattered over the desert? Oh, one more thing: why didn't she just keep SOME of the diamonds in her pockets? I was actually yelling at the screen and that doesn't happen very often. As for Duster's little "leave it all in the past" speech, I kept asking just what would her plan be if she did leave the desert? She has no id, has never been to school, has very few skills, no references, no money. How would she survive? Do not, I repeat, do not waste your time on this movie. Look for GREED, as I plan to do.

Fergus27 The plot is not what brings your focus to bear with this film - it is the absolutely horrible acting performances of the players. James Spader's agent should spend significant resources to pass the rumour that he didn't have a part in this film (he's practically unrecognizable anyway); Minnie Driver's contribution is in the body part only league; and Josh Brolin should not give up his day job. In particular, the language accents taken on by Driver & Brolin are forced, stereotypical, and false. In fact, for me, the disastrous lack of some kind of sanity in the plotline coupled with loser performances of Driver and Brolin made the desert scenes the most interesting part of the film. Spader is a fine actor who just doesn't need this kind of drivel on his record. Scale of 0-10: a 2 for Spader and the desert scenes.