The arrival of a black family shakes up an idyllic 1950's neighborhood,
while a shocking murder doesn't arouse the same kind of interest. CRIME/DRAMA
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Suburbicon (2017)Directed by George Clooney
Written by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, George Clooney, Grant Heslov Starring Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, Oscar Isaac, Noah Jupe, Glenn Fleshler, Alex Hassell, Jack Conley, Gary Basaraba |
When I first watched the trailer for Suburbicon, I was so excited. A crime comedy directed by George Clooney, written by the Coen Brothers, and starring Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, and Oscar Isaac. In what world does this mixture of geniuses not create a modern cinematic masterpiece? Well, as it turns out, it's our world. Now that I've seen the movie, I can't believe the blatant false advertising in the trailer. Not only is this film the farthest thing from comedy, it's barely recognizable as the same movie from the trailer. It's almost like we're watching a Coen script that never made it past the first draft, and it saddens me that they put their mark on this misguided travesty.
For starters, Matt Damon is actually the bad guy, which you know pretty much from the start. He plans the murder of his wife so he can skip off to Aruba with her twin sister and the insurance money. This is all told from the perspective of his son, Nicky, which is why the bizarre racial subplot never seems to get any real focus. It wasn't wise to attempt to combine a murder mystery with a social commentary about race. The result is a poorly edited mess with no structure and a host of horribly written characters. The more I write about this, the more I can't believe this was written by the same men who gave us The Big Lebowski, Fargo, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, and Miller's Crossing. Then again, they also gave us Hail, Caesar and Intolerable Cruelty, so maybe they're human after all. Suburbicon is what happens when a filmmaker tries to take every Oscar bait scenario at his disposal and combine them to make a coherent feature. It's a weak film with the premise of a Law & Order episode that never gets any better. What infuriates me the most is how dishonest the ads were. It's almost like they knew the film was bad, so they tricked people into seeing it by promising a completely different movie. It's a cheap shot, and frankly, a d**k move. Not something I'd expect from either Clooney or the Coens. |