Showing posts with label Paul Newman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paul Newman. Show all posts

Monday, November 25, 2019

Road to Perdition Is A Crime Thriller That Sticks With You


It’s amazing what a difference a hat can make. Like a pair of glasses, a person can look totally different whenever they’re wearing them. Take Tom Hanks in Road to Perdition for instance. When he’s wearing a low-tipped hat covering the upper part of his face in this movie, he totally looks older, weary and menacing. Those aren’t words one usually associates with Hanks, but they totally come to mind when his character, Michael Sullivan, dons a hat. Whenever he takes that hat off, though, a magical transformation occurs. Suddenly, Hanks is back to looking boyish and charming, like it hasn't been a day since Turner & Hooch. What a difference a hat can make.


Sunday, June 16, 2019

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Offers Some Thrills But Struggles With Characters And Atmosphere

At the tail end of the 19th-century, Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman) and the Sundance Kid (Robert Redford) are legendary robbers who steal from trains and get away without anyone even knowing they were there. They've had remarkable good luck over the years and maintain a mostly friendly relationship with a number of their associates ranging from fellow crooks to important townsfolk. But their luck runs out when an unknown group begins to chase after the duo relentlessly. This time, they can't seem to shake whoever it is that's on their tail. If anyone could get out of this scenario, it's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid...but what if all of their luck has finally run out?


Friday, March 2, 2018

The Sting Makes Pulling Off An Entertaining Heist Look Effortless

If there's one ingredient that's crucial to making a proper good heist movie going, it's getting lead actors who are endlessly charismatic, the kind of people who can always keep your attention as they portray morally dubious individuals trying to pull off a big job. Getting Robert Redford and Paul Newman together to headline The Sting means that that pivotal element is already well taken for, these two are thoroughly engaging actors on their own merits and have winning chemistry together. The compulsively watchable lead actor part of the good heist movie equation has been well taken care of and thankfully The Sting manages to give this lead duo plenty to do in the course of pulling off a seemingly impossible heist.

Friday, June 23, 2017

Cars 3 Delivers A Shocking Amount Of Emotionally Engaging, If Sometimes Formulaic, Storytelling

In many ways, Cars 3 feels like a companion piece to last summer's PIXAR movie, Finding Dory. Not only are both sequels but they arrive in an era of PIXAR's filmography so heavily dominated by sequels it's become understandable to question whether the more bold storytelling instincts the studio was relying on for its first 15 years of existence have escaped them (though Inside Out is the kind of masterpiece demonstrating how good this studio can be when it really swings for the fences). Cars 3, even moreso than Finding Dory (whose predecessor never really spawned much in the way of merchandise) is mostly a gamble to create toys and assorted paraphernalia that these Cars movies have become most noteworthy for.