Review of Leaves of Grass (2009) by Kevin D — 14 Oct 2010

Pretty good movie, very flawed but pretty good. First things first, Edward Norton is fabulous in this movie. With a different actor, Brady's portrayal could have left a lot to be desired. But Edward finds a way to make it work.

Yes, his accent is funny but it never becomes like it's a mean-spirited portrayal of rednecks. Far from it. Again I found his accent to be funny, but it also has to do with a lot of the things he says being funny and his delivery of these lines.

And the character ISN'T a joke. Edward Norton carries his movie on his SHOULDERS. I can't imagine how different this movie would have been with a different, less capable, actor. One thing about these movies that has one actor play more than one role (in this case twins).

In EVERY movie that does this there's usually a LOT of scenes where the characters are face to face and they ARE facing each other, but EVERY FUCKING time...it does not fail...whenever I see those scenes, they might be facing each other but to me IT always seems like they're on different planes.

It never fucking FAILS. I don't know why it is, but I can never seem think that they're ACTUALLY facing each other. I don't know whose fault is that, probably no one's, but it's just odd to me.

This movie is NOT the exception and to be honest, the scenes where Edward Norton is talking to his "brother" don't look the smoothest. Especially some of the scenes where they're walking and talking.

It's a low-budget movie, so it probably COULDN'T have been as smooth, but it sort of bothered me. And the ONE HUGE complaint about the movie. This movie has a LOT of unexpected scenes. Usually I'd say that that's a good thing, since movies have become so predictable nowadays that sometimes I know what the characters are going to say before they say it.

But in this movie it isn't mixed as well. Here you have this somewhat upbeat movie and you have that for say about an hour. Then out of the FUCKING BLUE, two guys are shot in the head and killed. What the fuck??? You need to EASE us into it, don't just fucking THROW it at us and then try to go back to the 'upbeat' tone of the movie.

It just didn't work. But then again it's somewhat believable. It keeps you on your toes and you never know WHAT to expect, like the characters themselves. But there's way things can be done by pacing yourselves better and just easing the audience into all the violence, rather than just throwing it at us.

It made sense what they did, but it didn't fit with the character, who was usually a likeable guy with some flaws. That and the balance between comedy and drama is a bit iffy. It's not bad, but they don't gel all that well together.

Thankfully Edward Norton is so great that he makes the movie entertaining. The rest of the cast is fine, but it's clearly a one man show (perhaps). Whether it's one of his better performances or not, is hard to say, and it's sure as shit not going to win him any awards but Edward Norton really does make up for a lot of the film's flaws.

It's not a movie I'd recommend renting unless you really wanna see it.