I thought that this movie is about action and violence and all those gory thing, and I was mistaken. I didn't expect a full pledge drama that is based on graphic novel which was actually nice. Unfortunately, the film speaks differently. It was a bit different kind of movie to my taste, to forgetable drama-ish so to speak; it starts slow and build in the end. But I'm a bit impatience for this kind of genre of drama. I expected more than this.

Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) runs a diner in a small town in Indiana and has a loving regular family, with his wife Edie (Maria Bello), a son, Jack (Ashton Holmes) and Sarah (Heidi Hayes). One day, two criminals named Leland (Stephen Mchattie) and William (Greg Bryk) show up in the diner, intent to robbery and murder -- prompting Tom to defend himself and saves the other people in the diner -- by killing those thugs. Tom becomes the 'American Hero' and praised by the town's people. In the wake of Tom's heroic stand and media attraction, a man named Carl Fogarty (Ed Harris) shows up in town and accused Tom as a mobster killer named Joey Cusack from Philadelphia. Carl Fogarty and his henchmen stalks Tom's family and force him to come with them to Philly.

For a drama, the premise is a bit misleading -- I thought it was gonna be an action movie. Gee, I was dissapointed. Not because it wasn't an action film, but the drama itself it's a bit boring. For the first half of the movie, the film pace is so slow and irritating, I was having a daydream which I actually played a Russian Roullete and shot myself in the head. I mean, I yawned most of the time. I get the feeling this is deliberate, rather than just loose editing. Both as a vehicle for this essay in brutalised humanity and as a thriller, this film is pretty dreadful. No doubt it's intended to over-assert the stereotypes; wholesome Americans, jocks, bad guys, the mob. From then on, the movie is full of silence, grimacing expressions, and scenes that made you lose all respect for the the film itself. The movie has great actors, but the acting is literally that bad. Nothing is interesting, exciting, stylishly done, or put together at all. The story is mediocre and the characters are static. The script is lackluster, the editing purely is atrocious and there is so little emotion to the writing, it just left you flat and wondering why? The premise is strong, but the movie drags, and while the film may play it off as people being confused and going through a wide range of emotions the viewer sees it as, "will somebody please get to the point in this clunker?."

The tell tale sign is when the audience gets up and leaves at the beginning of the credits not half way through. There are several sex scenes which I thought unnecessary, not because of the awkward sex scenes itself -- but more like it is shadowing the whole movie instead. This distending of characters comes across as patronizing and doesn't really add to the psychodynamic of the sex when it's introduced. I do have to give praise to Viggo Mortensen, who I thought was so boring in the fist half, and then in one brief defining moment, I can see he clicked into someone brutal and violent in a mere second. William Hurt was in this movie for five goddamn minutes as a mob boss named Richie Cusack, and he bag himself an Oscar nomination...What the fuck? Ed Harris was wasting his time in his movie; an actor of his calibre and he didn't get more screentime he deserve which is a case in pantomime point; dry. Overall, it's highly overrated film. It preaches too much to the audience, and I sure hell don't like to be preach on.

Ratings: 5/10