Best Laid Plans

Do you like Film Noir?  If so, locate this 1999 thriller, a little-known gem that attaches itself to you like a barnacle! (Hey, Valerie the English teacher, like my imagery?)

First, the actors.  Well, you all know Reese.  She's that talented young lady who has acted up a storm since she hit Hollywood as a kid.  She was dynamite as the sassy teen in Pleasantville.  She was extraordinary as the naive, snotty girlfriend in American Psycho.  She was comically brilliant as the seemingly ditsy brainiac law student in Legally Blonde.  And she just happened to snag a Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of June Carter in Walk the Line!

Then there's Josh Brolin.  He's just about everywhere you look now.  Who can forget how nobly he played our former intellectually-challenged president in W?  He was downright creepy as the man in pursuit of a crazy murderer in No Country for Old Men.  He was great as a scientist opposite Elizabeth Shue in Hollow Man.  And he was best, in my mind, in the outrageously fun Jonah Hex (go back a ways to find my review of that over-the-top imaginative masterpiece).

Terrence Howard is also on the menu.  He has been a fine supporting actor in so many well-known films:  Mr Holland's Opus, NYPD Blue (TV), Angel Eyes, Ray, The Brave One, and Law and Order (TV).  Terrence is always convincing, no matter what the role.

Finally, there's the very talented Alessandro Nivola.  Not well known to today's audiences, he was very popular in the movies of the 90s.  After graduating from Yale in 1994, he soared in the entertainment world and finally landed this lead spot opposite Reese.  Later, his career fizzled, probably because Hollywood can be so fickle.

The Plot?  Noir as noir can be!

No spoiler, but it's about a whole bunch of folks who are down on their luck and try to con each other.  Who's for real?  Who's not?  Will the "good guy", who's not that good, come up with the money for the gangsters?  Will the gangsters do him in?  And knock off his girlfriend?  Wait, are the gangsters for real?  What's the truth?

Haha!  What fun!  What a gripping, taut tale!

Enter the dark world of deception....as a viewer, you'll be glad you did!