Silver City Review
by Karina Montgomery (karina AT cinerina DOT com)October 15th, 2004
Silver City
Catch it on HBO
This was a difficult review to write. The poster, Yahoo Movies, all imply that the star of the movie is Chris Cooper. That is both fact and exaggeration. Cooper is the character around whom all the events of the film orbit, but he is on screen a disappointingly small amount of time. When he is on screen, he is completely brilliant. It is obvious he patterned a good deal of his character (a Colorado gubernatorial candidate hilariously called Dickie Pilager) on the undisputed speaking style of President George W. Bush; whatever your feelings about that man as a president, you cannot deny his personal style and manner are uniquely his own, quirky and folksy and all of it, and Cooper has that vibe down to a T. A scene with Cooper and Kris Kristofferson (a corporate bedfellow) is the best scene in the movie.
The rest of the cast is populated with hard core actors like Miguel Ferrer, Maria Bello, Thora Birch, Tim Roth, Richard Dreyfuss, Mary Kay Place. But the lead, the main character, the one who drives the story, is played by Danny Huston. Who? Son of director John Huston. And? And that's pretty much it. I do hate to pan an actor, I really do, especially a relative unknown who scored a huge part with a bunch of excellent performers in a movie by the writer/director of Lone Star. I have to say, Huston sucked the life out of this film in every scene he was in. Even the editor didn't seem to know what to do with him, with the result a clunky-paced, grinning chop-fest of Huston and whoever he's in the scene with, him ambling through the scenes good-naturedly but with the wit of Pilager, and them chewing and Acting to beat the band. I thought at first that the dialogue was just a little clumsy, but then all the other people seemed to sell it with no problem. In one particular scene with Huston and Ferrer this was painfully obvious, Ferrer commanding the room with his diminutive stance and mellow contralto, Huston taking beats to grin and waggle his eyebrows and pause, smiling through lines that felt unstudied. It gave the whole movie a classless film student project feel, which tainted the good work of the others.
One thing I can say for Huston is that he really seems to believe in what he is doing. He's working hard, but just working hard at the wrong thing. His best scenes are those with Daryl Hannah, where he truly seems like a genuine, nice guy, and her wackiness throws him for a loop that works great for his role, and therefore suits his acting style the best. Sadly, these scenes are brief.
Sayles' script is a little aimless, it does meander a bit between the satire of the shrewd campaign-related scenes and the sort-of mystery that we don't care that much about that Huston is sniffing. Most of the scripts faults are forgotten when Chris Cooper takes center stage, however, and we know something special is going on. The end result, however, as led by Huston, just feels sloppy and frustrating. The clever stuff is definitely clever, but the sloppy stuff just comes off like weak tea.
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These reviews (c) 2004 Karina Montgomery. Please feel free to forward but credit the reviewer in the text. Thanks. You can check out previous reviews at:
http://www.cinerina.com and http://ofcs.rottentomatoes.com - the Online Film Critics Society http://www.hsbr.net/reviews/karina/listing.hsbr - Hollywood Stock Exchange Brokerage Resource
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
