Gus Van Sant's latest. I'm not a big fan; I saw My Own Private Idaho (1991) a long time ago and (I think) nothing since. He directed a script by Austin Kolodney. There's not a lot to recommend it.
The poster and early scenes clearly signal Arnie-in-T2 shotgun (but no roses) retro-nostalgia. It's 1977 and in this inspired-by-real-life flick, despite being at most two years since Dog Day Afternoon (1975), no reference is made to that classic. Bill Skarsgård leads as the semi-hinged Tony Kiritsis who kidnaps mortgage company scion Dacre Montgomery (entirely personality free, a thankless role) in some fantasy vengeful scheme that will only lead to good things. Colman Domingo is the golden-tonsiled Black man on the radio, the voice of Indianapolis, just like Cleavon Little in Vanishing Point (1971), charged with intervening. Many scenes just drag on. The outcome was predictable — the only variable was whether our main man would get killed by the police, but of course those were more civilised times. I had no doubt at any point that he should have hijacked a plane instead.
This thing does not even function as a proof-of-life for Al Pacino.
Ben Kenigsberg at the New York Times: low energy, needed more crazy. Skarsgård impersonates an imagined Michael Shannon performance. Peter Bradshaw: gripping.
