"A" for All-Right

Anesthetic's Movie Review (AMR). As an opener to this article I must say this movie review will be but the first of many. Since working at Blockbuster I have been renting films like a madman and watching most of most of them. I figured it wouldn't take much to do a quick review of them all and besides it gets my ass off the couch and into a rigid upright position on a wooden chair. This is better? my ass asks. So, here is my review of the movie staring Edward Norton, and co-staring Anna Paquin, who in my opinion is now the hottest girl in film. SO this film gets an "A", for All-Right. It's not bad but it's not great. Oh and all movies that are reviewed get "A"s, but for different reasons.

Yes, this spoils the movie or most of it.

The opening is good, giving you both the difficult feeing similar to the one evoked while undergoing the question: You find a turtle on its back in the desert; do you turn it over or keep walking? But Mr.Norton shows his caring side, opts not to put a bullet in the seemingly mortally wounded dog, takes it to the nearby emergency animal hospital against his fat-ass friend's advice, and thus the story begins. A few years later Mr.Norton is busted for trafficing drugs, big time. Almost the entire movie deals with him tying up loose ends. His friends are from all over the place, um, all three of them: the hunky guy from Saving Private Ryan (oops, did that slip?), plays one of Mr.Norton's friends and is a stock broker interested in ladies and money; there is the guy already introduced in the opening scene, who doesn't have much to contribute; and the school teacher who has a crush on one of his students played by Anna Paquin. What in the hell the school teacher and the girl have to do with the movie I truly do not know. It's an interesting side-plot that could have gone somewhere to make a punch of a meaning but didn't. I guess it's supposed to leave you wondering what happens, or what the right thing was to do given the fact no one is totallly innocent, except maybe Miss Paquin but I could be biased here.

Anyway, it was a little long, just over two hours and although that's how long most movies are, this one dragged a little. I was looking for meaning, and I'm sure I could pull several theories out of this Spike Lee Joint but dammit, it didna deliver. There's a part where Mr.Norton is talking to himself in a bathroom mirror and it's talking back to him, blaming every single possible visible minority around, and his friends and girlfriend, and then he tells himself: Fuck You. All right, he knows he's done wrong and he's going to pay for it. So... why in the end does he run away and forget the past, live the life he always wished he'd lead instead? Or does he? I don't know if he does. He shows you what that new life would be, but leaves you hanging at the cusp.

Am I supposed to know enough about him to know which one he'll pick? I don't care. Like when I saw The Salton Sea; I didn't care who the guy played by Val Kilmer was in the end and god dammit are there enough planes flying overhead? Holy shit muffins, it's coming up on 4am and I've heard 6 planes in the last few hours just barreling across the night sky. Jeez.

So, uh, don't bother renting the movie unless you're intending to watch it with a Spike Lee Joint in hand, or unless you are a fan of Edward Norton and/or Anna Paquin like I am. If you worship Anna Paquin as I just may in the future, see this movie. Damned planes, there goes another.