Slow Burn (2007)

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The first must-see film of the year.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Loved the plots within plots! The only thing that I don't get is, why was Danny's character omitted from the closing credits?

This wore out its welcome about 40 minutes into the movie and after the halfway point, about 10 minutes later, I totally didn't care if our girl here was innocent or guilty. The story just became plodding.I am so glad it wasn't just me, that the first review I see here - Mermaidbronze - felt the same way I did. I'll put it in simple terms: this film was not as "smart" and "clever" as it thought it was. In fact, it was stupid because it committed the ultimate sin for making a movie - it bored the hell out of its audience, and an audience that includes some "smart people" who can figure things out. A convoluted movie is just that, and not fun to watch no matter what any viewer's IQ might be.Movies that revolve around the big question "Did he/she kill the person or not" are either extremely interesting and involving or the opposite. I found it un-involving, and when you don't care about the characters, then you don't care who's innocent or guilty and the film loses all effectiveness.This movie was filmed in 2003 but not released until this year - four years later! Maybe they knew it was a turkey.

SLOW BURN (2007) * Ray Liotta, LL Cool J, Mekhi Phifer, Jolene Blalock, Guy Torry, Taye Diggs, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Bruce McGill.More like a simmering potboiler:1995's crackling neo-noir sleeper "The Usual Suspects" was in a class by itself but lately there have been some numerous copycats in attempting to glean some magic from its infamous twisted ending revealing who its arch-criminal Keyser Soze really was. The latest pretender to the throne is a horse of another color (and yes the pun is meant to be offensive).Set in the twilight hours in a no-names urbane city an ambitious DA named Ford Cole (Liotta, who is also a producer on this dreadful film) who is summoned to the police station when one of his younger protégées (and current lover), Nora Timmer (mannequin Blalock) has been involved in a lethal shooting after her claims of being raped by her assailant, Isaac Duperde.Adding fuel to the fire is many turns in this serpentine crime drama that offers about as much suspense as a re-run of any form of "Law & Order": Timmer may or may not have been having an affair with the deceased assailant, may or may not know the true identity of the mysterious local kingpin and may or may not be involved in a convoluted scheme involving high-level real estate conspiracies with the aforementioned gangsta.Enter Luther Pinks (Cool J), who has some info on Timmer confirming she is not on the level and his identity is also in question (as is his purple prose involving his olfactory senses with laughable line readings).The whole lousy mess is indecipherable until it's cribbing of the final act of "Suspects" for its own conclusion that not only cheats a smart, knowing audience but feels like a cheat from the minute one character is onto another with a fateful 'wait=a-second' glance and pause in his tracks.Although Blalock is a real hottie, the shameful way her character is depicted as either a 'sista pretending to be white' or vice versea as some sort of living-in-the-shadows- chameleon is only further drummed over the head by the ham-fisted direction by Wayne Beach in his debut as a helmsman and also the film's scribe. The fact he actually shows a real-life chameleon during several sequences involving Nora is truly eye rolling.It doesn't help that the film has been on the shelf for several year. That's never a good sign and another is shamefully stealing from a real classic.

I thought this was a great movie. It reminded me of the Kevin Spacey's movie "The Usual Suspects". Yet I haven't seen a web site that recommends it if you watched this movie. I have recently watched "The Prestige". And I felt this movie had a Prestige ending. I was still putting the pieces together hours after the movie had ended. I was nearly going to skip this movie, because it was a 2005 film. And thought it must be crap. Otherwise I would have heard of it before. I only became aware, as it was coming up as a new release in the UK. So I surfed the web looking for a trailer. The first 45 minutes of the movie lays the foundation. With only one twist about the 20-min mark. But after that the movie picks up and the twists keep on coming. Then there's a fast ending that leaves you wondering what just happened. Even though I have said that this movie is like "The Usual Suspects" it is different and takes it to a higher level.