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Kevin Michael Vance
Writer - Portland, Oregon
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Go Back To Reviews
Title: FIND ME GUILTY
Director: Sidney Lumet
Year: 2006
Reviewed: July 15, 2006
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Four Course Meal-Highest Rating |
[Rating Definitions]
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I believe Vin Diesel is a good actor. Ever since I saw him in (one of my favorite movies: Pitch Black) I've liked him. Sure, he's done a few bad flicks, but what actor has not? (There used to be a time when you could point to Deniro and say, "that man has never done a bad movie." But once that "Bull Winkle" farce destroyed, not his career, but rather, the consistency of his career, that day was over.) I constantly, and rather, annoyingly use the example that all of us- you, me, and your cousins- would have, will, and still might, do a movie as asinine as XXX. Diesel, in my eyes, made a calculated, and very smart move in starring in XXX. I mean, the man got, reportedly, 20 million dollars for the film. Now, if he's bright, he can sit back, have the enviable opportunity of actually picking and choosing his movies, and live off the spoils of XXX for the rest of his natural, or unnatural, born life. As I said, "smart move".
Back to the review, I loved Find Me Guilty, which is why I give it a FOUR COURSE MEAL review.
Again, I think Diesel can act, and not just passable, but well. Find Me Guilty proves me right. True, my brother disagrees with me, and finds Diesel one-dimensional, however, even he had to admit that Diesel ran with the character in the film and, in the not-so immortal words of Oprah, owned it. The movie works on many different levels. As a true story, with words taken directly from the court proceedings, it is an amazing account of one of the most amazing trials I had never known existed. It is difficult to categorize the film, for it is neither a comedy nor a drama, but something wonderfully struggling in between. This, I fear, is the reason the movie came and went so quickly. But if you pass up Find Me Guilty on the shelves your missing out on a wonderful opportunity. The movie has no blood, no gore, no action, and no explosions, nothing that might mark it as a "block buster". What it does have, however, is a tight script, brilliantly acted by Diesel and cast, a mind-boggling true story that is more horrific than funny (I personally cannot even conceive of being on jury duty for well over 600 days!), and flawless direction that will make you question what you think constitutes a "gangster".
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