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The Movie: Hollywood hasn't always been driven by special effects films. In fact up until the mid 1990's Hollywood had a different focus all together. This focus was known as the star driven motion picture where the movies were more dependant upon a number of major stars to carry the picture. However with the current trend of salaries going through the roof it's getting progressively harder for a movie to have more then one major star in the cast. Sure there have been exceptions for movies such as Pearl Harbor (Ben Affleck, Cuba Gooding Jr., Alec Baldwin) and Traffic (Micheal Douglas, Catherine Zeta Jones) but overall there aren't really that many pictures with multiple A-list talent these days. This movie is an exception to the rule featuring 3 top notch actors in Robert De Niro, Marlon Brando and Edward Norton one of the most talented actors to come along in years. Nick Burns (Robert De Niro) is one of the world's top burglars having stolen more then his fair share of money and jewels over the years. Like everyone else in life he is getting older and is beginning to think about settling down with his flight attendant girlfriend (Angela Basset) to manage his local jazz club more closely. His boss Max (Marlon Brando) has other ideas after he is unable to pay Nick his share of the profits from the last job. Max wants Nick to break his 2 cardinal rules by doing a job in his home city of Montreal and by doing it with a partner. Nick turns down the job deciding to stick by his principles. Pressure begins to mount and Max offers Nick a huge return if he's successful in retrieving the item. The item in question is a priceless ancient sceptre which is being held at the Montreal customs house. Nick won't be alone on this job as Max has a man on the inside. Jack (Edward Norton) has been posing as a slow witted janitor named Brian. He has befriended the security staff at the building and is no longer checked as he goes through the metal detector. He has the security system down pat and knows just exactly how to pull things off. Together Jack and Nick will attempt to recover the spectre and earn their share of the cash. As usual things don't get go exactly as planned and what looked like an easy score becomes increasingly more difficult. Based upon the actors and their performances alone The Score should be a killer movie. You have arguably two of the biggest names in the history of Hollywood in Brando and De Niro and you have a very promising upstart in Edward Norton who has been likened to a young De Niro. You also have the excellent Angela Basset in a small almost cameo type role. All three main performances are excellent. Robert De Niro is in excellent form bringing back shades of his roles in Dog Day Afternoon and Scarface. Marlon Brando who had to drop out of a small role on Scary Movie 2 (later replaced by James Woods) due to illness doesn't really show any signs of being under the weather here. While he doesn't have many scenes he does an excellent job in the scenes he does have reminding the viewers of just what a great talent he was and still is. Edward Norton who has appeared in American History X and Fight Club and is vast proving himself to be the man to beat in Hollywood gives another one of his trademark performances here. Edward is able to handle both the conniving side of Jack and the dimwitted Brian with equal grace. Never once did he slip causing the Jack character to act like Brian or vice versa. Norton is a multi-talented performer who if he continues to pick his roles right will still be around in 10 or 20 years. While the actors are rock solid the real problems lie on the creative side. The screenplay by Lem Dobbs and Kario Salem is uninspired and unoriginal. It has been widely reported that Edward Norton was unhappy with the screenplay before signing on to the project and that some of the screenplay has been changed from the original draft that Norton didn't like. If the screenplay for the finished project is any indicator of the quality of earlier drafts it would seem that either a few more drafts were needed or this was as good as it was going to get. The story lacks anything new, every event that occurs throughout the story is predictable. The plot twists can be seen from a mile away as they are fairly obviously given away early on in the proceedings. The first 90 minutes of the film builds and builds and then the last 30 minutes plays out like a textbook ending. At no time throughout this movie was I surprised at the events that transpired. It was basically a case of slap together all the common aspects of the genre and get an all star cast. Director Frank Oz who is better known as a director of comedies such as Bowfinger, In and Out and Little Shop of Horrors in addition to being Yoda in the Star Wars films seems out of his element as the director on this film. This in no way was meant to be a comedy but the parts of the film I enjoyed most where some comical moments that I don't think where intended to be taken that way. I can't really fault him too much as those problems can be traced back to the predictable screenplay. Oz shines briefly during some scenes but for the most part just seems better suited to doing a more slapstick comedy type film. If not for the all star cast The Score would likely fall in the direct to video category with it's predictable story, generic plot and all too common ending. Still with the quality of the performances given and a chance to see the past, present and future greats of Hollywood all on the same screen at once it's well worth the price of admission. It's just a shame that a better effort wasn't made to fix the problems with the screenplay because with a better story The Score would truly score. . |