Review: Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

Reviews

Slow Burn

Ridden with awful lines

By RICHARD BECK | April 18, 2007

2.5 Stars

VIDEO: Watch the trailer for Slowburn.

Writer/director Wayne Beach’s film has Ray Liotta as Ford Cole, a politically ambitious DA who’s having trouble tracking down the city’s most notorious mob boss. Then Cole’s star prosecutor — Nora Timmer (Jolene Blalock) — kills a man she claims raped her, the first in a chain of events that will end careers, spill blood, and lead to the inevitable surprise twist. Although hard-bitten noir entry injects a refreshing dose of racial politics into the familiar formula, Beach’s plodding direction can bog things down, and the many awful lines given LL Cool J — “She stood there smelling like a tangerine, ripe and ready to be peeled” is a highlight — are distracting. Top it all off with a few surprise twists too many and you have a film that’s more of a frustrating near-miss than a disappointment.

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Topics: Reviews , Ray Liotta, LL Cool J

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