Director: Steven Soderbergh
Year Released: 1999
Rating: 2.5
You could never accuse Stephen Soderbergh of not trying to do something different or unique - the guy genre-jumps from topic to topic, subject to subject - and this film is yet another attempt to play the experiment-game with the art of story-telling, but unfortunately, it comes across more of as an exercise than an actual narrative. Sixties icon Terence Stamp comes to US looking for the man (Peter Fonda) who may or may not have killed his twenty-something daughter, all the while trying to piece together the memories he has of his now-deceased offspring. The cinematics used for the flashback sequences are quite good and his usage of footage from the Ken Loach 1967 film Poor Cow (with a youthful Stamp) is interesting and not at all gimmicky. However, the main story itself - his finding Fonda - is questionably developed. Soderbergh appears to over-borrow from Tarantino for a few scenes, and as a result the film shifts from a fragmented commentary on memory and regret into Pulp Fiction-esque banter, thereby losing its grip.
