Burton Speaks

It's movie night here in Casa De Burton and I popped in an old goodie: 1997's The Peacemaker. Starring George Clooney as an impulsive military man of action working counter-terrorism and Nicole Kidman as his intelligent, thoughtful boss, this movie has been part of my collection for a while.

Let's start with the good parts of this movie: Wonderful music, great acting, believable plot, non-stop action (but not mindless violence), and did I mention the music? But what makes this a great film is the depth that each of the main characters has, especially the bad guy. Every character has enough of a background that you sympathize with his or her cause, and every character is moving according to believable motivations. This is what seperates a good movie from a great one.

Now let's discuss the bad parts of this movie. I can only think of two: the first is some terrible product placement "I uploaded it to my AOL account" and the second was the running-and-jumping-to-escape-the-explosion scene, except they did that twice. But those are the only gripes I can come up with.

Final word on The Peacemaker: See it. It's exciting, well done, and underappreciated.