The Two Faces of January is a quiet, slowly tense thriller that hearkens back to crime films of the 50’s and 60’s, in that it has a very retro-like feel and even plot. Two leads, Viggo Mortensen and Kirsten Dunst, have made their share of blockbusters but have lately been seen more in small independent films, while the third, Oscar Isaac, has made a career of small films and is just getting ready to heady to mainstream with the upcoming Star Wars and X-Men films.
Chester (Mortensen) and Colette (Dunst) are touring Europe when they bump into Rydal (Isaac), an American moonlighting as a tour guide while he decides what he wants to do with his life. Unbeknownst at first, Chester is in hiding for having swindled a bunch of investors back in the states. When a PI catches up to him, Chester kills him and enlists Rydal’s help to flee. Rydal is instantly attracted to Colette, and as the film progresses, we see how far Chester is willing to go to protect his own and keep on the run.
The film has a fair number of plot twists that keep you on your toes, events that you just don’t see coming, but for me it had the feel of great actors concealing a very average movie. It tries to set Rydal up as an unwilling accomplice, but he goes too far to help Chester that it is hard to sympathize much. A short film at just 96 or so minutes, so worth a single viewing if you have an afternoon free.
I skipped on this film last year during my movie adventure (I skipped a lot of the kid-oriented films) so finally getting around to it. The book was one of my favorites as a little kid, and the movie does it justice. You’ve probably heard the premise from all the previews last year. Alexander lives his life with perpetual bad luck, until the day of his 12th birthday when inexplicably, his bad luck transfers to the others in his family. The film is their antics throughout the day as increasingly worse things continue to happen. Alexander can just sit back in wonder as his day goes well, while everyone else has the worst day of their lives. Even when they feel like they’ve turned the corner and it starts to look like it may get better, bad things just keep happening to the poor family.
It’s good family entertainment. I think kids will laugh the hardest, but there are still grins and chuckles for adults too.
Jons Movie Takes 