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Nightmare Alley

I liked Nightmare Alley at first. It's visually gorgeous and pulls you in with its ambience and bits of mystery. But at a certain point, where what I'd call the "second act" begins, I looked to see how much was left of the movie, thinking it was about the time in a noir when things really get going like a runaway freight train, and realized it was only half over! I felt pretty restless at that point, in spite of Cate Blanchett's pitch-perfect performance. It wasn't so much that less time should have been used up in the first act as that every single thing should have been shorter. This should have had the brisk quality of classic noir, instead of the slow boil noir here. The movie does finally go into runaway freight train mode almost two hours in, and that last part is intense and gripping and everything you'd want it to be, but really this whole movie should have been 90-100 minutes and a good finale doesn't erase the boredom I'd felt for most of the previous hour. Del Toro's a terrific director, the movie looks amazing, and Blanchett is phenomenal, so I won't say skip it. I will say, lower your expectations and don't count on something worthy of the best picture Oscar nomination this got.

Like all of Del Toro's films, Nightmare Alley is a visual feast. The production design and cinematography transported me into his grim and glossy dystopian vision. Also, the acting is some of the best I've seen in one of Del Toro's movies. Bradley Cooper gives perhaps his finest performance, and he sells every unsettling moment of this horrifying cautionary tale as his character is consumed by the consequences of his pride. The best moments in this story really are some of the best scenes of the year, and they will stick with me for some time to come. The film's biggest weakness is it's obviously bloated runtime. The second act really meanders and focuses on romantic subplots without giving us reasons to believe that the characters fall in love. A great deal of material should have been either explored more or cut altogether. As it stands, the center of this story is woefully half-baked. Still, the production design and performances alone make this worth checking out. It really is something to behold.

Down-on-his-luck Stanton Carlisle endears himself to a clairvoyant and her husband at a traveling carnival. Using newly acquired knowledge gained from the couple, Carlisle crafts a golden ticket to success by swindling the elite and wealthy. Hoping to hit big, he soon plans a scheme to con a dangerous tycoon with help from a mysterious psychiatrist who might be his most formidable opponent yet.......... I've never been the biggest fam of Del Toro, Pans Labyrinth and Hellboy are amazing movies, but films like Crimson Peak, and Pacific Rim, just didn't hit the mark with me. In fact, they were downright boring in my eyes. And then there are all those horror films he likes to attach his name to. So i went in to this with very low expectations, and having never seen any trailers, or even reading the source material, I has no idea what was in store for me. The opening was very odd,, the whole film is an obvious homage to the Film Noir of the forties and fifties, but as soon as I heard Defoe speak, this film suddenly fell into place and it was a blast from beginning to end. It's a simple enough story, trying to trick guilt racked people in to experiencing some sort of solace, feeding of the sadness of people who are eternally mourning, but doing a wonderful and believable job as doing it. But Stanton very quickly knows that this is a case cow, and he wants to milk it, regardless of the repercussions and warnings he receives from his colleagues. Cooper is great as the selfish Stanton, he is at once monstrous and empathetic, leading to many surprises in the film. The story hints at some sort of monster inside of him, but it simmers very subconsciously in his role. Once Blanchett arrives on screen, Cooper is sidelined by her, her psychiatrist almost feeling like a gangsters mole when they first have a meeting at her office. She supplies him with information, and he executes it with sincere glee, much to his put upon partner, Molly (Rooney Mara) who knows that his greed will be his undoing, as do the viewers. Del Toro relishes in Stantons downfall, and it's really uncomfortable viewing, seeing the smug Stanton keep taking on more that he can handle. The final third is beautifully sinister, the walls are crumbling down, and all he can do is watch, and the audience feel as helpless as him. And the final scene is breathtaking, clever, and frankly satisfying. It's easily his best film since Pans Labyrinth, and if it's not in my top ten of 2022, it's going to be a great year for cinema.

Bradley Cooper burns down a house, then hops a rattler to a carnival someplace. Mostly keeping his mouth shut, he learns how to do a mentalist and spook act from David Strathairn, while boffing Strathairn's girlfriend Toni Collette and lusting for electric girl Rooney Mara. Strathairn croaks from bad booze Cooper gave him by mistake, he and Miss Mara shuffle off to Buffalo, where they do a mentalist act and, at the behest of psychiatrist Cate Blanchett he communicates with the dead for the rich and powerful. It's based, like the 1947 flop starring Tyrone Power, on William Lindsay Gresham's novel. It's a much more accurate telling of the story, not only for the stuff the Hays Office made them leave out, but the shocker of the ending. The visuals, as you would expect from director Guillermo del Toro, are impeccable, from the ghastly exhibits at the side shows, to the Biedermeyer decor of Doctor Blanchett's office -- clearly she studied in Vienna. Location shooting in Buffalo and nearby cities help. The color palette looks like late 1940s Fox Dramatic Technicolor: LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN. If there is a problem with this 150-minute movie, it's that it's edited too short. The first half, set at the carny, seems leisurely enough, until everything reappears at the end, showing it was all foreshadowing. The Buffalo sequence is edited so tightly that you can't figure out Miss Blanchett's motives, and the ending feels rushed. But I stayed through to the end, with nary a bathroom break, despite the urge.

I'm not a fan of the 1940s film noir version of "Nightmare Alley" starring Tyrone Power, so I was all in for a new crack at the material, even if there is a "huh?...why now?" element to the timing. But Guillermo Del Toro doesn't have much more luck with the material than the original and has made a bloated, artificial, and curiously inert movie out of it. The film looks gorgeous, let's get that out of the way. But it almost looks too gorgeous, like a a glossy magazine spread. The settings feel too stylized and artificial, as do all of the performances. Bradley Cooper isn't that great of an actor in my opinion, and he's not able to make a fairly one-note character very compelling. Rooney Mara is wasted window dressing. Cate Blanchett is the only person who got the memo that this is film noir material, and she plays her character to the hilt as a classic femme fatale. The problem is she's the only one who does, so her performance, while it's the most entertaining, feels cartoonish and like it should be in another movie. The film is also way too long for the slim plot. This is something that could have made a tight, tense, little 90-minute thriller but feels like something stretched by a director who doesn't know when to quit. And what is with Del Toro's obsession with throwing in such graphically violent scenes at the end of a movie that up to that point hasn't been graphic at all? Is it to shock us with the contrast? Because it pulls me out of the world of the movie. He has a * with showing people's faces literally caved in in gory detail, something he indulged in "Pan's Labyrinth" and again here. This movie is a misfire. Grade: C+

Great cinematography, acting, and well built story. A bit slow and somehow predictable, however worth it the time and the story and characters stay with you after leaving the theater.

Stanton Carlisle is a drifter with a talent for theatrics and hustling people out of their money. He lands a job at a carnival where he learns the essentials of mentalism from a pair of masters of the art. He also meets the love of his life and the two of them leave the carnival to take his act on the road. Then he meets a psychologist who sees through his façade. A film which on the surface had the potential to be a great psychological thriller. However, it doesn't come close to delivering on its promise. The set-up - Carlisle working at the carnival - takes far too long, resulting in the film feeling likes it's just aimlessly drifting. The carnival section isn't worthless - it shows Carlisle's character and skills, how he learnt his craft and the lengths he would go to in order to get ahead - but it is far too drawn-out. When Act 2 eventually arrives we're already an hour into the movie. I was starting to think of giving up but the introduction of the psychologist, Dr Lilith Ritter, immediately ups the tension and intrigue. However, even now things get drawn out. With my attention re-engaged I figured that I was in a for a thrilling, intriguing, tension-filled, twist-filled roller-coaster ride but the film pulls too many of its punches. Plot development is sedate and conventional and instead of a great twist towards the end the film just peters out. In my mind I was contemplating all the decent, yet largely predictable, twists the film could follow yet the ending didn't even measure up to the most predictable of these. Disappointing.

Like all of Del Toro's films, Nightmare Alley is a visual feast. The production design and cinematography transported me into his grim and glossy dystopian vision. Also, the acting is some of the best I've seen in one of Del Toro's movies. Bradley Cooper gives perhaps his finest performance, and he sells every unsettling moment of this horrifying cautionary tale as his character is consumed by the consequences of his pride. The best moments in this story really are some of the best scenes of the year, and they will stick with me for some time to come. The film's biggest weakness is it's obviously bloated runtime. The second act really meanders and focuses on romantic subplots without giving us reasons to believe that the characters fall in love. A great deal of material should have been either explored more or cut altogether. As it stands, the center of this story is woefully half-baked. Still, the production design and performances alone make this worth checking out. It really is something to behold.