Review of Green Book (2018) by Xan_Ryil — 20 Feb 2019

With the noise it made recently, I could say I was bit disappointed. Overall it was a decent movie but not worthy of the names it grabbed. I think anyone would agree that this movie is like watching a re-mastered version of “Driving Miss Daisy” with much focus on the recent changes.

Times were simpler back in 1989 when “Driving Miss Daisy” was released and the focus was only on the story and relationship between a Jewish women and Black driver. But in almost three decades’ focus became less and less towards the story and more on “How to force the academy members to vote for this movie?”. Movie spills its beans way too early and even with that pace, every single step is predictable. Even upcoming scenes could be predicted with exact timing and words. Either writers wanted to stick to the real story too much or they wanted to not show anything to antagonize either color. And as a product of their effort, the output was mediocre.

As far as acting goes, Mahershala Ali is on average. Beside one scene, his acting looks like an effort. For a person like me who has seen him for several years, on House of Cards giving a brilliant performance before he became famous, his portrayal was a huge let down. His effort was visible but he resisted taking risk. Viggo Mortensen on the other hand was closer to the character he was playing. He did not come up with the sharp Italian ascent we’d expect since God Father but his body language was very impressive. Ironically, Viggo was nominated for a similar role 11 years ago for “Eastern Promises”.

The Green Book is not a bad movie and definitely not a bad idea, but it sure was wasted to milk the recent black cow.