This film reminds me of the kind of breezy, competent, procedural explorations of the underworld we used to see in the 1970s. Unsentimental, understated, blackly comic, and sparsely stylized. It's a magnificent example of restraint and indulgence, and when and how to do both.
The story and the characters are fully fleshed but they don't seem to serve any purpose other than exhibition. Three sets of protagonists (none of them truly antagonist or contagonistic to each other to count) all act in accordance to the events that happen and piece together the aftermath in a logical but undramatic fashion. The film is incredibly deft at making the drama about the implications of what is going to happen rather than milking a scene for its anguish. Even the most gut-wrenching moments are played for maximum minimalism, and the humor and horror both emerge undiluted and unaugmented as a result. The violence is actually perhaps the best of any film in decades as it's played (with the exception of one scene) for all of its brutal, instant, and appalling reality. You feel the aged and worn reality the characters live in and the existential malaise that comes from being trapped in it.
The narrative is unconventional, in both how it begins and ends, but its not pretentious or gimmicky. The film is merely interested in what happens and how it happens, and leaves it to the viewer to determine how they feel about it.
The story and the characters are fully fleshed but they don't seem to serve any purpose other than exhibition. Three sets of protagonists (none of them truly antagonist or contagonistic to each other to count) all act in accordance to the events that happen and piece together the aftermath in a logical but undramatic fashion. The film is incredibly deft at making the drama about the implications of what is going to happen rather than milking a scene for its anguish. Even the most gut-wrenching moments are played for maximum minimalism, and the humor and horror both emerge undiluted and unaugmented as a result. The violence is actually perhaps the best of any film in decades as it's played (with the exception of one scene) for all of its brutal, instant, and appalling reality. You feel the aged and worn reality the characters live in and the existential malaise that comes from being trapped in it.
The narrative is unconventional, in both how it begins and ends, but its not pretentious or gimmicky. The film is merely interested in what happens and how it happens, and leaves it to the viewer to determine how they feel about it.