Vidas cruzadas

A powerful and compelling story, filmed well and with some great performances.

Sean Penn seems to have managed to level the actors here, with David Morse, Anjelica Huston and Jack Nicholson putting in great performances and none of them stealing the scenes from the other. I found this very surprising as I expected Nicholson to flood the screen, as he so often does with such little difficulty.

However, the emotion between Huston and Nicholson in the latter half of the film during the coffee shop scene is so powerful to watch. Huston is such a wonderful actress, and Nicholson shows some emotional depth that I haven't seen before, or rather, not felt with his performance before.

The story is written and planned extremely well, with tension rising slowly and almost imperceptibly, until the final day. I found myself caught from the opening scenes of the counselling session cut with the drunken, partying Nicholson, right through to the pivotal moments of the main characters lives.

It is a fantastic way to address this subject. To examine it from both sides, and keep each side with its own sympathies and understandings. Cleverly your sympathies and hatred are swapped throughout the story.

I hope there's more to come like this.

It has been five years since Freddie and Mary's young daughter was killed by a drunk driver and they have both been dealing with it in their own ways. Mary has moved on with a new husband and her other children, while Freddie has collapsed in on himself with a glut of drinks and strippers. However now that the killer, John Booth, has been released Freddie has focus and aims to kill him in revenge. However nothing is that simple.

Sean Penn, Jack Nicholson and David Morse are pretty much going to be worth a look as they are all pretty intense actors when given the material to work with. In this film Penn is the writer and director and, unfortunately, he is not as good as writing as he is the other facets of his job. Here the film is pretty good but has one massive problem that it cannot get over - the script. The film is based on clichés that you will have seen before. This itself is not a problem as, although the characters are familiar, it's what you do with them that counts - not their basic descriptions.

However the film doesn't actually do much with these basic characters and, what it does, is confused and clichéd as much as the basics are! The `message' of the film will be different for everyone so I won't go into that but suffice to say that the characters are never really explained and it is impossible to really feel for any of them. They drift aimlessly for an hour or so just `feeling' in a story that borders on the dull, before something happens that has any meaning - and even then you could see it coming. The script wants to be deep and meaningful, and it appears to have fooled several people on this site, but really it is hollow and really lacking in anything close to engagement.

It is even more tragic when you see the potential that the film had. As director, Penn does pretty well with good atmosphere and style. Likewise the cast could have been great but are mostly left to aimlessly drift with a script they can't work with. You can tell Penn is an actor by the way he seems to have been content to let the actor's `explore the space' or, in my terms, do what they want. Morse is a good actor but here he is lumbered with a man who has done all his suffering off camera resulting in him being a bland character with nothing left to explore in front of us. Huston is given nothing of value to do and the inclusion of Robin Wright Penn can surely be nothing but nepotism.

Overall there is a good film in here somewhere, but this is not it. The big names gather around a script that eventually lets them down by being far too dull and simplistic (and confused at the same time!) and never really engages.

David Morse was excellent in the movie. Whenever he's on screen, the movie is worth watching. Jack Nicholson is his usual competent crazy guy. The subject makes the movie a Serious Topic movie, but it often has trouble staying on topic.

The movie itself is mostly very slow going, aside from Morse's scenes and the scene where Nicholson talks to his ex-wife about a dream. How many times do we need to see Nicholson's character hanging out at the strip club? Yes, we get the idea, he's turned into a sleazebag with no direction in his life.

The ending is what really saves the movie. Beyond that, no spoilers from me. Once you get the idea of how Nicholson acts in the strip club, you might as well fast-forward through the strip club scenes (unless you want to see the strippers do their thing), because they're all pretty much the same. Still, that ending is just so good the movie ends up feeling pretty decent.

This film should have been good. It has a potentially great plot, and the first few scenes are very good. Then, it simply falls apart, and the main plot is basically ignored for much of the remainder of the movie. I also found the ending to be somewhat disappointing, although it was nice to see the focus back on the central storyline. The acting was certainly good, as you would expect in a Jack Nicholson movie, but the real tragedy is that David Morse was absolutely wasted. He was outstanding, but he rarely had anything to work with. What a disappointment.

I don`t think much of Sean Penn as an actor , his OTT performance in CASUALTIES OF WAR almost ruined the entire film for me and it wasn`t only that film that Penn yanked my chain , but despite this I can`t help noticing that he does have some talent behind the camera . He`s not flawless of course and his flaws are plain to see in his later film THE PLEDGE but I found THE CROSSING GUARD to be both very moody and very moving with some truly great acting on display . It does suffer from one deep flaw - Penn`s script

The problem is how the two protagonists are written . Freddy Gales daughter is killed by drunk driver John Booth so guess which character THE CROSSING GUARD portrays in a sympathetic light ? That`s right , the one who killed the girl ! I won`t go as far to say that Penn has painted Booth as the real victim , but why on earth does he paint Freddy as being such a harsh character ? He`s vulgar , always in a drunken state and when it comes to women his attitude is disgusting , in fact he`s a dirty old man and there`s nothing to prove it`s caused by the reaction to the death of his daughter . He is the opposite of Booth who is shown as a different character whose spell in prison has changed him into a profound man able to contribute to society . I see so the man bereaved by the criminal is actually the bad guy ? I`m not sure if this is what Penn is saying because the message is somewhat confused .

But despite this serious flaw I`d like to see more films directed by Sean Penn , just as long as the producer keeps him away from a word processor