Watched 'I Care a Lot' some weeks back with a lot of anticipation. Really like Peter Dinklage and Rosamund Pike as actors, likewise with Dianne Wiest. All three have been fantastic in other things. The premise was a great and interesting one, if very nasty and one that would make anybody unsettled. The film is also in a genre that has always appealed to me and looked great from the advertising. Even the overwhelming negative ratings here didn't dissuade me from seeing 'I Care a Lot'.
After watching, 'I Care a Lot' is to me not near as bad as has been said here and not deserving of so many of the lowest rating votes that indicates no redeeming qualities, which actually goes against what most of those that have given it that rating have said. Having said that, 'I Care a Lot' did disappoint me and certainly wanted to like so much more. It is a film of two halves, one being great and the other being pretty bad. Uneven is a good word to sum it up.
'I Care a Lot' does have a number of good things. The best thing about it is Pike, on killer form as a character that manages to be even more amoral than her Amy Dunne in 'Gone Girl'. She really did make me feel uneasy, just as her role required. Dinklage has never been more sinister than here and his chemistry with Pike in the second half really chills. Eiza Gonzalez has allure and intensity in her acting, her chemistry with Pike sizzles and personally don't think what it represented was laid on too thick. Was also impressed by the always great Wiest, who is moving as the one rootable character in the film.
The visuals are stylish and have an audacious thriller action look, almost looking at times like it was homaging spaghetti westerns. The music is very atmosphere-filled and pulsates with energy without being too over the top. The script in the first half is taut, darkly comic/satiric at times and often chilling, effectively making one feel uncomfortable at the nastiness that goes on. It even has a voice over eerily reminiscent of 'Gone Girl's' "Cool Girl" monologue.
First half is truly great. Fast-paced, intriguing, tense and appropriately makes one feel uncomfortable and scared, this kind of deceit does happen and the film does very well at showing the full horrors of it and how easily it can be fallen for. The direction in the first half was clever stylistically and had the right amount of tension.
Sadly, 'I Care a Lot's' second half is nowhere near as good and actually felt like a different and vastly inferior film. It was mostly pretty bad, and at its worst it was close to awful and saved only by the acting, the chemistry between Pike and Dinklage, their performances and the visuals. The tautness is lost and the intrigue and tension go too and the trashiness goes well overboard. Evident in some truly implausible and very strange moments , and it feels over-stretched (this could have been twenty minutes shorter easily) and downright silly. The murder attempt especially has to be seen to be believed and not in a good way.
Also overkill was the bumbling ineptitude of the mafia, while the dialogue loses its flow and becomes cheesy and self-indulgent. The direction also suffers in quality and became dumb done for the paycheck action thriller-like. While the very end satisfies, what happens comes straight out of nowhere and is rushed through.
Concluding, started off so well but the second half was a real let-down. 6/10.
