Yesterday the only major Hollywood movie released was 1917 which I had seen earlier during its special screening. So I decided to see a John Travolta movie which had been released a day before and was playing in the theater near our home. I saw this by myself as usually this kind of film was not really my wife's cup of tea. Well let's get into it now.
Brief Story Line
Set in the year 1978, a Private Investigator based in Los Angeles named Carson Phillips (John Travolta - Grease, Swordfish etc) was hired for a case involving the disappearance of a wealthy woman in his hometown in Texas. Despite his reluctance, Carson still took the case where he met Doctor Mitchell (Brendan Fraser - Doom Patrol TV series, Encino Man etc), the head of the psychiatric facility where the person was supposed to be treated. While doing his investigation, Carson met with his old love from 20 years ago named Jayne (Famke Janssen - Primal, Taken trilogy etc) who was now a widow with her only daughter Becky (Ella Bleu Travolta).
Carson also met with his old acquaintances such as the shady businessman Doc (Morgan Freeman - Angel Has Fallen, Now You See Me 2 etc), his old high school buddies Slide (Peter Stormare - John Wick: Chapter 2, Constantine etc) and Walsh (Robert Patrick - Scorpion TV series, Safe House etc) who had become the sheriff. For Carson though, what started as a routine case, quickly became a huge one where he had to resolve his own past to have a future.
So how would the story conclude? Find them all in this noir movie.
End of Brief Story Line
When the movie started, I was surprised hearing the voice over done by John Travolta as this drunk PI cause I felt it was going to be an interesting film noir genre where we would see stylish mystery solving. The story was set in 1978 no doubt to give emphasis on the classic feel for us. However, as the movie progressed, the noir feel seemed to be reducing little by little and in the end I felt it was just like any other standard detective story without the stylish and classic feel. At first I thought maybe it was because it was not in black & white, but then I realized it was just the way the story move on and the mystery which did not intrigued me at all.
Further down the line, the characters were not really that interesting either. Morgan Freeman's character the shady businessman did not seem to be convincing for me. And worse part was Famke Janssen's character as the supposed old love interest of Travolta did not have the best chemistry. Not to mention Becky's character played by Travolta's daughter Ella Bleu who sadly I thought was too stiff in her acting. The rest were unimpressive as well which made the movie totally not memorable. I was so bored during the film that I dozed off few times. In addition, the side mystery and supposed twists were too predictable, although I did quite enjoy the ending. No mid or post end credit scene in here.
There were few action sequence but it was neither stylish nor suspenseful. I actually felt quite sorry for some of the big names cast in the film as they must have regretted joining the movie. Overall, there was not too much to say about this, except that it was not a worthy movie to be seen in the cinema. If you are fan of mystery solving or love the film noir genre, this certainly would not be satisfying at all.
Mike's movie moments rating: 2 out of 5 stars
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