Clay Pigeons

This is a movie that we watched in my film class that I am supposed to write a professional review for. This assignment is to be 2-3 pages long and when I am done writing it, ill post it here. I guess that my initial reaction to the movie was negative. This is a change for me. I like almost every movie I watch. The movie is the story of a man in a small town who drives his best friend to suicide by sleeping with his wife. That is the outset of this pseudo-dramedy. The movie is very quirky. Joaquin Phoenix plays the main character who is befriended by a dark friend with a lot of secrets. This guy is portrayed by Vince Vaughn in the best work I have seen him accomplish to date. He plays the part with such pitch-perfect duplicity, it is fascinating. I simply do not know what compelled him to move his career into comedy. I mean he is a funny guy, but this performance was so disturbing and intriguing, I could see him becoming a great dramatic actor. Despite pretty solid performances from these to male leads and an interesting early dramatic turn from Jeaneanne Garafolo with stellar cinematography, the tone of the movie really just didn't sit right. I didn't really get connected to the story and the tone was simply just to quirky. I would not really recommend this to anyone who is not a hardcore film enthusiast. I thouroughly enjoyed seeing the dramatic turn by Vince Vaughn, though and it just might be worth seeing the film for that. Hopefully, he will get back to these sort of films in the future and see some great accolades for such work. Standby for my full review of the movie. I just might have a different take when I sit down, review my notes, and critically study the full film.