Review of The Color of Money (1986) by Tino R — 29 Sep 2010

I admire so much Martin Scorsese and for that reason until today, I never thought I would ever say that I didn't like a film of his. And well, I didn't like this movie. I mean, it's not a bad film, it's far from being a bad film, but it isn't very close either of being good.

With a director like that, a good direction (at least on a technical level) is a sure thing, and along with Paul Newman's brilliant performance, and also a great start and a couple of good moments, are the good things I saw and liked of this movie.

What I didn't like was the plot, even forgetting that it's The Hustler's sequel (both films besides the main character have no relation at all, and I think it was just a matter of publicity, calling this a sequel to that classic, even when it's based on the sequel of the novel) I didn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to.

It's worthy to mention the very good performance of Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and well, Tom Cruise, very young in this, wasn't either good or bad, it was just an average performance and his character wasn't helped either by a very flawed script, in my opinion.

The final 30 minutes of the film were the lowest point of the movie, it was good until them, but the final scene was terrible actually. I liked several things from it, but it's ruined by an inconsistent story, an average script and an uninspired direction by Martin Scorsese.

It wasn't boring either, but when it was supposed to be the sequel of a great film and being a film directed by Martin Scorsese, all I can say is that I'm pretty disappointed.