Reviews - The Summons, The Departed

My brother and I finally finished The Departed last night, and let me tell you that was a great movie. What made it great, though, was the ending.

I'll be honest with you, the movie itself was going a little slow for me. The story itself had the potential to be just like every other undercover cop story out there. With the wrong director or slight alterations in the script it could have even been on par with Lucky Number Slevin, which would not have been good. But the way it played out made it all worthwhile, and the acting was top notch. Filled with an all star cast (DiCaprio, Damon, Nicholson, Sheen, Wahlberg, Baldwin) and some intense and emotional drama, the movie, for me, lived up to the hype. It was gritty, the direction was excellent, the plot gave us several shockers and the ending was just classic.

Here's the spoilers...


Everybody dies! Well, everybody except Baldwin and Wahlberg, who both had relatively small roles in the film compared to the other big players. It's not often in a film that both lead actors bite the big one, but that's exactly what happened here. And if it hadn't happened that way it would have made it into just another movie. That ending, in my opinion, landed it the Oscars it received. Great storytelling.


Now onto the book I've been reading, The Summons by John Grisham. While I was into it towards the middle, overall it was not his greatest work by far. As I mentioned before, I have not read his other books, but I have seen several (Rainmaker, The Client, A Time to Kill, The Pelican Brief, The Firm, Runaway Jury) of the film adaptations. If the books of A Time to Kill and Rainmaker are better than their film versions, which is usually the case, then The Summons far pales in comparison, but it was still enjoyable... until the end.

The story, in short, is about a Law Professor, Ray Atlee, who finds his father, a well-respected Mississippi judge, but a poor father, dead in his home. Shortly after Ray finds $3 million stashed behind the sofa, and thus the real story begins. Someone else knows about the money, and the ensuing journey sees Ray scramble to protect his life and the money while trying to solve the mystery of who's after him and where the money came from, and in the meantime lying to everyone close to him.

As I said, the middle of the story, which made up the bulk of it was interesting. There were people following Ray leaving cryptic clues for him no matter where he went. He drove and flew through and to several states, and they were always there, watching him. Meanwhile he was dealing with his father's estate, a drug addict brother and a number of other problems besides the money issue.

The ending is what made this book drop in quality. First, though, being a smart man as Atlee is, there are some things he should have figured out or thought of, like checking to see how these people knew where he was at all times. You'd think he'd check to see if his car was being tracked. Then he just becomes a total wuss at the end of the book and runs for his life, landing himself in jail for speeding and carrying a weapon.

Without giving anything away, in the last few chapters of the book it became painfully obvious who was behind it all and how it had all played out. Early on I had a hint of this as well, and was thoroughly disappointed that the plot was that thin.

Overall, it was a decent read, but the ending ruined it for me. Oh well.

And that's it for the reviews today.

B-Out

And the Hits Keep Comin'

Forgive me for getting personal again, but I have to talk about some stuff.

I'm telling you, I think our family is cursed! Okay, so over the weekend two really terrible things happened. First, the milder of the two, my Papaw fell at the rehabilitation center and they didn't even notify any of the family that it happened. So my aunts have been dealing with that drama.

Second, my 18 year old cousin was playing a gig at a local club I think Friday night. His mother and her husband, and his brother and his girlfriend were there. Well, his brother, my cousin Chris (33 I think) went outside to get the car and got mugged and stabbed! He had just gotten paid too, so the mugger took all the money they had.

Chris has been through several ordeals this past year, most of which I won't go into. He has a condition where he passes out and it really caused some trouble last year. The man is raising three or four kids (I've lost track) and works really hard. This was just one more thing to pile up on him.

We didn't find out about all this until yesterday. None of the family bothered to let us know anything for some reason. So it's just been a real mess.

I've had a touch of the flu the past couple of days (yep, sick again), but aside from one incident it hasn't bedridden me yet. I had laid down for an afternoon nap the other day around 2:30pm and ended up sleeping 9 straight hours! I hardly ever am able to sleep for more than 3-4 hours straight, so that really took me by surprise. I'm still pretty fatigued, but I'm pushing on anyway.

On a lighter note, I got to see The Departed finally last night. My brother and I almost finished it, but got too tired, so we'll finish it today or tomorrow. I'll hold off any comments until then.

Back in the wide world of comics, it's been busy, busy, busy. In my job I worked at least 20 hours over the weekend, but we got some pretty cool video interviews posted on the site out of it.

Small Press Idol is still slow going right now. Only a couple of new entries have come in the past two weeks, and even though a few more are promised to trinkle in it looks like Round 1 is winding down. We still have nearly three weeks before Round 2 begins though. Ugh.

Man I'm glad I posted this entry because it reminded me of something I have to do. I completely forgot about my column this week! And it's due tonight! Sheesh. I am so behind on things. But never fear, I have a feeling this week is the week I'll get all caught up... hopefully!

I read Civil War #6-7 a few days ago. I'm going to review #7 for the site, so I'll hold off on that for now. Suffice it to say that I'm somewhat pleased and somewhat disappointed.

I'm also still reading The Summons by John Grisham, though I'm finally nearing the end. I've been reading that book really slow and very little at a time, mostly due to lack of time. I have to say it's not one of his best stories, but I'm still mildly enjoying it. I'm really curious how things will play out. Maybe I'll give it a full review here when I'm done.

Well, back to work I go, I go.

B-Out