Watching a guy screw up for two frantic hours may not sound very compelling, but this is a fine piece of work
Written by Ronald Bronstein, Josh Safdie, and Benny Safdie, and directed by the Safdies, Uncut Gems is essentially two hours and fifteen minutes of watching a guy screw up in increasingly spectacular and catastrophic ways, make bad decision after bad decision, and give in to his addiction to gambling more and more. It's a film where you know from the first ten minutes that sooner or later, he won't be able to worm his way out of one of his mistakes, and at that point, his seemingly unshakable optimism and belief in his own delusions will prove ill-equipped to deal with the reckoning. So from the first act, you're on edge, and you remain there for the duration. It's a film that never stops moving at the chaotic breakneck speed with which it begins, a film possessed of energy nearly queasy in nature. So, two hours and fifteen minutes of rapidly-paced stress-inducing cinema about a deluded hustler screwing up? Sounds fun doesn't it? No, of course it doesn't. However, it has been made with such craft, the mise en scène is so good, the dialogue so sharp, the acting so intense, that you may as well be watching a fly-on-the-wall documentary. It's a film made of pure sweat and anxiety, and it's about as stressful an experience as you can have at the movies. It's also superb.
For my complete review, please visit: https://boxd.it/WVY99
Review by Stephen CampbellBlockedParent2022-10-22T02:51:59Z
Watching a guy screw up for two frantic hours may not sound very compelling, but this is a fine piece of work
Written by Ronald Bronstein, Josh Safdie, and Benny Safdie, and directed by the Safdies, Uncut Gems is essentially two hours and fifteen minutes of watching a guy screw up in increasingly spectacular and catastrophic ways, make bad decision after bad decision, and give in to his addiction to gambling more and more. It's a film where you know from the first ten minutes that sooner or later, he won't be able to worm his way out of one of his mistakes, and at that point, his seemingly unshakable optimism and belief in his own delusions will prove ill-equipped to deal with the reckoning. So from the first act, you're on edge, and you remain there for the duration. It's a film that never stops moving at the chaotic breakneck speed with which it begins, a film possessed of energy nearly queasy in nature. So, two hours and fifteen minutes of rapidly-paced stress-inducing cinema about a deluded hustler screwing up? Sounds fun doesn't it? No, of course it doesn't. However, it has been made with such craft, the mise en scène is so good, the dialogue so sharp, the acting so intense, that you may as well be watching a fly-on-the-wall documentary. It's a film made of pure sweat and anxiety, and it's about as stressful an experience as you can have at the movies. It's also superb.
For my complete review, please visit: https://boxd.it/WVY99