Review of The Crossing Guard (1995) by Xgary X — 25 Nov 2006

"hes out john booth is out and im gonna kill him" they are nicholsons words near the start of the film and this is what the movie centres around the determination of the grieving father to take away the life of the man who accidently run down his daughter while drink driving there is good and bad within this movie the movie does move at an extremely slow pace and penns directing skills are not yet that sharp at this point the acting is very good however david morse is very good as the killer full of remorse his understated performance and angelica huston is wonderful in all of her scenes so much so its hard to imagine anyone playing her role any better than she did however as you would expect nicholson is the standout in a lot of ways he isnt really helped by penn his charater who goes through a blitz of one night stands he picks up at a seedy strip club where he appears to spend all his social time isnt that sympathetic and is involved in some rather pointless subplots however nicholson portays the charcter superbly with a mixture simmering anger and desperate sadness.

This is a decent movie but not as great as it could have been.