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