Cool story: I somehow wrote my entire review of Michael Matthews’ Five Fingers for Marseilles not realizing that, when I copied the HTML code to paste the title as needed throughout the piece, I managed to cut off the “s” at the end. Oh well! I’d pester my editor about it, but truth to tell, I’m fine letting the dumb mistake live forever online as a reminder to, I suppose, not let that kind of shit happen again*.
Anyways: Movie’s fine. I like seeing familiar templates remade in the image of unfamiliar cultures and places, but I really think Matthews and screenwriter Sean Drummond needed to let this one cook a while longer before shooting. It’s underdeveloped in too many ways to sustain itself. Maybe trimming ten minutes or so off the running time would have alleviated that, but there’s either too much or not enough time spent with the primary characters as kids, and once we flash forward to their adulthood we don’t really have a strong grasp on who they are (against the film’s efforts to prevent that from happening).
You can read the full review over at Paste Magazine.
*Which it will. I’m just a human being.
A Constant Visual Feast 