The Score is the best movie of the summer. Yes, you heard me
clearly (lest your ears be clogged by the rampant propaganda
spread citing mainstream hiccups Pearl Harbor, JP3 and the like
as quality endeavours). In stark contrast to the cheap, screeching
and manipulative corpses swimming in the flegm-sodden summer box
office cesspool, The Score packs a hearty whallop of excitement,
tension and action without ever taking itself too seriously
or overstepping it’s boundaries.
Near-retirement Heist artist Nick Wells (DeNiro) has on his
steadily declining horizon a last job that’ll net him a generous
amount of retirement spending money. The location being a Customs
House in Montreal, Nick must collaborate with Jackie (Fight Club
legend Edward Norton) under the guise of aging gangster film
slow-talk paladin Marlon Brando (playing the decrepit Max).
Their mission, theft of a priceless sceptar through employment
of deceptive retardation, high tech gadgetry and general sneakyness.
The Score’s scenery holds perhaps it’s greatest weakness, it’s
vision has the unlimited potential of a Ronin or Godfather,
and yet it never seeks to capitolize on the settled, darkened
atmospheric power it embodies. DeNiro’s subtlety mimmicks his
silence from Jackie Brown, but harvests more of a distinct
realism in his performance in The Score. His presence is perhaps
the only one of it’s kind in The Score, which brings me to
either one of these conclusions: A, The Score was crafted after
DeNiro’s magnificent chemistry with mafia angst or, B, DeNiro’s
sublime shine is unrespected and undeserved in what otherwise
amounts to be Ronin-lite.
But considering the genius that is Ronin, The Score is still
perfectly intact with success. By far, Edward Norton
and the aforementioned too-good-to-be-true DeNiro carry
this film on it’s high heels rocketing towards a fascinating
climax. The Score is worth your money.