DOM HEMINGWAY (2014)

Written & Directed By: Richard Shepard 
Cinematography By: Giles Nuttgens 
Editor: Dana Congdon 

Cast: Jude Law, Richard E. Grant, Demian Bichir, Emilia Clarke, Kerry Condon

After spending 12 years in prison for keeping his mouth shut, notorious safe-cracker Dom Hemingway is back on the streets of London looking to collect what he's owed.

I really wanted to enjoy this film and it starts off well before it starts to dissolve before your very eyes.

This film gives Jude law the role he has needed or quite someone to show off his skills. After becoming hollywood's hot everyman then once the roles he took weren't enough to make him a star nor were many of his films blockbusters. Hollywood seemed to use him up and throw him away. Here r gets his time to shine the problem is that here we have a great Character, bit don't have a worthy film to support him.

Jude Law gained 30 pounds for his role as Dom. In order to gain weight for his appearance in this film, He drank ten Coca-Colas a day.

As soon after his introduction which is phenomenal we get a movie that is stylish and cutting edge until the halfway point the he film seems to become petty and aimless dragged down in melodrama. The character stays interesting even though the situations and the film seem to become dull.

There is some great material here that just seems to fizzle and go to being basic. Colorful but pretty basic. Anything special about it seems to disappear except for the great lead performances that try hard as stay true to the Character even when the script seems to abandon them.

Now the film could have still been fun If we just watch the character try I adjust and go on journeys. You actually hope for episodic for at least a bunch of mini adventures to happen. Instead we get what seems to be droning about one or two jobs. While he tries to get back in his daughters good graces.

The situations become funny though they lack the cynical comedy needed to really push the film to it's limits and also the job he needs to do would be more exciting If it was liked with more tension and less humor. It is presented so matter of factly. It just seems another stop on the course though it is supposed to be a suspenseful highlight.

What works is the performance while the scrip has strong characters it lacks in giving them something to do. Seeming to feel of they are set up we will follow them through anything.

Richard Shepherd has done this before with his previous film THE MATADOR though that film seemed slight it was filled with so much rich characterization that the story while minimal was still ought and thrilling. Here it seems to go from extravagant to minimal in thirty minutes.

While the film has an ending. Again it seems minimal and quite easy as the film seems to stop, just when it seems on the verge to staring something again.

Here all small pleasures the art direction and not only Jude Law's performance but also a personal fave from Richard E. Grant as the straight man stuck with the 70's dapper wardrobe.

It’s a film full of ideas that never seem to be acted upon. It’s colorful and fun, but underneath no depth that it seems to want us to believe it has. It’s a film you can definitely wait for on television though with the language and situations, it’s a better bet on cable. Just as long as you don’t really have to spend any money on it.

GRADE: C-