Review of The Paperboy (2012) by Ola G — 21 Apr 2013

An idealistic reporter and his brother, Ward Jansen (Matthew McConaughey) and Jack Jansen (Zac Efron), investigate the events surrounding a murder in an effort to exonerate a man on death row, Hillary van Wetter (John Cusack). van Wetter has been jailed for the murder of an unscrupulous local sheriff, Thurmond Call. Call had previously stomped van Wetter's handcuffed cousin to death. van Wetter is now on death row and awaiting execution. The Jansens are helped by Ward's colleague, Englishman Yardley Acheman (David Oyelowo), and Charlotte Bless (Nicole Kidman), a woman whom van Wetter has never met but who has fallen in love with him and is determined that he should be released and that they should marry. In prison van Wetter regularly receives correspondence from her. Charlotte tries to prove van Wetter's innocence by requesting the help of Ward and Yardley, who are both investigative reporters from the Miami Times and are hungry for a salacious story. The evidence against van Wetter is inconsistent and the writers are confident that if they can expose van Wetter as a victim of redneck justice then their story will benefit them greatly. Meanwhile, Jack has fallen in love with Charlotte who only desires van Wetter. Soon enough they all realise that they are caught in a web more complicated they could imagine and nothing is what they though it was...

Lee Daniels "The Paperboy" carries such a true authentic feeling at times, you almost feel that you are watching a documentary. Even if the storyline is maybe not so layered, the characters layers makes up for lacking depth in the script. It´s almost as the storyline is just tagging along the characters, not the opposite. But, I have no problems with that. Daniels has obviously managed to pull out the best from each leading actor/actress, because McConaughey, Efron, Kidman, Gray and Cusack delivers really memorable performances you´ll never forget in a heat stricken Florida in the 60´s. Been feeling that Kidman has been past her heydays, but in "The Paperboy" she delivers something I haven´t seen from her for several years. Thumbs up. The same goes for Cusack, an old favourite actor of mine, but he´s been a bit off his normal standard for some time, however as van Wetter he is truly back in business. Creepy, violent and obviously out of his mind. And I reckon McConaughey is really trying to steer his career into quite dark characters compared to before, and it really works. Efron is great as Jack, and if he keeps this sort of acting up he will go far in Hollywood. "The Paperboy" is dark, violent, evil and gritty, yet showing that Daniels has an intimate knowledge of his deeply flawed but very human characters to be able to create such a compelling movie. See it.