If I should make a top for the discrepancy between the feel a trailer leaves you with and a movie, for what I've watched in the last two-three years, "Fast Charlie" would probably come up somewhere among the top positions. Now well... the impression is subjective after all, both concerning the trailer, and the movie.
At least the subject you can get partially from the two minutes attached at the end of this entry. Charlie Swift (Pierce Brosnan) is a "fixer" for a criminal outfit from.. Biloxi, Mississippi (fact: the city has less than 50k inhabitants). Which organization, after 30 years of dominating the territory under the rule of the "godfather" Stan Mullen (James Caan in his last part), becomes the target of a "hostile takeover" by a young gangster who decides to eliminate everybody close to the leader. The story is predictable if you look at the trailer, Charlie escapes and seeks revenge. What's not that predictable is that this action thread is less major than it looks to be, and the movie is actually quite far from the typical standard B-series payback action thriller. First, we have plenty of nuances of black comedy. Second, we also have another set of more fine nuances of slow drama with insertions related to the late midlife chrisis of the main character. In some way, it feels a bit like the movies of Martin McDonagh ("In Bruges", "Seven Psychopats", etc.), but it's not really on par with these. However, you can feel there's a novel behind it = the story is not as thin as it mai seem at a first sight. We also have romance insertions and others, leaving the main thread somehow in background as I said.
It's not a movie that I could recommend besides the reasons written above. The actors do their job fine. The director (Phillip Noyce) does his job fine - the movie progression keeps you there, you don't feel any unnecessary length. Still, especially from a technical point of view, there's nothing remarkable about it. Maybe just the final minutes when you get a visual/audio arrangement meant to get a final thumbs up from you. Otherwise, it feels more like a made for tv movie, from which you expected a bit more. In the end it probably depends a lot of your mood. And in my case it came up in a moment when what I can do is to say again :) the impression is subjective.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
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