Remember Martin Brest , Pacino’s oscar bid. Now he has a nack of making some very good movies, entertainers, action flicks, and then he has this movie too to boast of . ’’Meet Joe Black’’ is a musical of sorts, yeah go ahead disagree. The move is brilliantly scripted with some excellent screenplay, the real winner is the movie score. The scenes are beautifully entwined with the background score. Thomas Newman, of Green Mile and The Shawsank Redemption fame proves his mettle far more ardently in this movie more than in anyone else. The camera work is captivating. Emmanuel Lubezki, of Great Expectations fame creates some captivating scenes that blends in fantastically well with the story and it’s flow.
You wanna know the real surprise package of the movie the direction. For those of you who have had to watch Gigli fellows here something to cheer about - same director but hell and heaven difference in both of the movies. Anthony Hopkins is clinical as always. He stands out as a method acting example. Casting of Brad Pitt in the movie is a low down for me. With a face as boyish as his he could hardly justify himself as a mean incarnation of ’’death’’(just imagine someone like a young Mel Gibson for Brad Pitt!!). He kinda overacts in some scenes and looks unusually bland in the rest of them, very average effort. Claire Forlani does well to hang in there in some very towering company of co-actors, and for the rest of the cast it’s not worth a mention.
On why the film succeeded, I guess it’s one of those cinemas where you can actually see hollywood graduating on to something new and fresh. For some of the viewers it can be a glacially slow, uneventful movie but for those of you who appreciate good cinema in all of it’s forms, this one is for you all.
Bottomline: the movie is Awsome and perfectly directed. All credit to the off-screen team.
3 of 5 for this movie..