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Showing posts with label The Negotiator. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Negotiator. Show all posts

November 11, 2010

Netflix Minute: The Negotiator

Netflix Minute is a weekly feature highlighting a title from Netflix's catalog of instant view films. If you want to spend a night snuggled up with a bag of popcorn and don't want to drive to the video store, this is for you.

F. Gary Gray is a director who originally came from the world of music videos, much like several other of his contemporaries like Michael Bay, Spike Jonze, and David Fincher. This enclave of camera talent has its ups and downs, both of which can often be attributed to the style that uniquely springs from telling a story in less than five minutes. Gray, in particular, suffered a decisive failure recently with his 2009 film Law Abiding Citizen, pummeled due to overwhelming violence and more importantly, an unbelievable plot that would require divine intervention to take place in the real world.

I can hardly blame him for being attracted to the script, however, as there's something inherently attractive about a well-planned scheme played out on screen by the genius who created it. That concept builds the perfect foundation for quite a few heist movies, which show the thieves barely managing to steal something under the most tricky lock and key. While Law Abiding Citizen failed to impress, F. Gary Gray did manage to hit this concept just right on his first attempt in 1998's The Negotiator.