be cool

We chose F Gary Grey's Be Cool for our cinema viewing last night. Dan had heard good things about it and so had I, including a glowing review from Chris Curtis and a slightly more honest but still positive one from Mr Herald&Post Film Reviwer himself, Matt Adcock

The film is jam packed with famous people (yeah, I know most films are but this one more than usual, OK?) with poor excuses for cameos all over the place. It's kinda nice at first, a bit like being in a crowd of people where you keep recognising old friends. But it gets tiresome after a while seeing so many people playing themselves.

As a film, it can't really decide which shelf to file itself on either. It has a wonderfully kitsch 70s feel to it but is also a gangster/mobster movie, a music industry "here's a singer who needs to launch her career who is played by a singer who needs to revive her career in real life" film, a comedy, a self-parody... and flitting between all these styles and genres gets tiring too. In my opinion they aren't well blended enough to make one film.

And as a result it just feels way too long. There are so many sub groups in the double crossing gangster bit of the plot that rather than being clever and complicated it just ends up being convaluted and annoying. And it's one of those films where there are loads of points at which you think "oh good, that'll be the end then" but it just carries on (and on and on and on)

We went to the cinema because we wanted to spend an evening together. We also had a food shopping list in the car, waiting for us to go to Asda afterwards but the film went on so long we didn't have time. The result... me in the cinema totally bored with a snoring Dan sat next to me and an empty fridge at home. We'd have had a better evening together in Asda.