Review of The Sunset Limited (2011) by F B — 06 Apr 2013

Considering all the kinds of movies which are made out there, it's not surprise that one would pick up on the notion of making a movie only about a conversation between 2 people. The real challenge would be to filling up the conversation to last for 90 odd minutes. In that sense this has been a successful movie. The contents of the conversation does seem interesting. But there are flaws. Considerable flaws.

For one thing the topics that keep coming up seems one dimensional. The writer only focuses on things he only knows of, which seems not that much. He is only thinking on the lanes of Christianity and the bible. That is only one view point and there are many around the world. Now we certainly cannot expect that he should know all about religion in the world. But for a person who knows about other philosophies external to theology, the conversation seems very limited. At one time "white" says if there is one religion that speaks about nothingness, suffering that he would gladly follow it. There are religions who speak of those things like Buddhism. The Conversation does seem intellectual but lacking in knowledge.

The acting of the two marvelously talented people doesn't seem all that convincing either. The conversation feels scripted, and loses the natural feel in most cases. I would like to imagine Morgan Freeman instead of S. Jackson. But he is probably playing god in this one too. I'd like to Imagine that he is the one who spoke to "Black" .

This is one of the most boring a normal mediocre movie fan would imaging. But that is certainly not the reason for my low rating here. The movie was able to keep me interested. But it could have been so much more. No one would even dare making a movie like this in Hollywood any more. So I would think the chance was somewhat ruined. This could have been a movie that could offer so much food for thought. But instead it seems like a redundant conversation on stuff that Buddhists just take for granted.