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hyped garbage

Good concept, poorly executed.

Admirable film.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

I freely admit to having watched this film primarily because of Dichen Lachmann and Natalie Zea (who I'll see in anything), but it had a great deal more to offer than I was expecting.Yes, Hauck steals freely from Quentin Tarantino when it comes to mixed-up timelines, and steals even more from the genre of L.A. Noir, but it has its own charms. It also has some really ballsy experiments, such as shooting each of the five acts in one single take (on 35mm film, which must have been a real bitch to pull off given the changing lighting conditions).Good performances from a wide range of actors clearly pitching in and having a good time with a small Indie film in between better-paying gigs. Plus, there are some genuinely touching moments, the kind that make you (or at least made me) go back and re-watch a couple of early scenes at the end to see them at the end, after the context of them has been to some extent explained.I like that the song "Down With Mary" has been short-listed for the Original Song Oscar this year. That shows that this film got more attention than might be expected for a supposed low-budget Indie flick. I look forward to Hauck's next effort.

This is a bad imitation of Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" complete with almost backward story order (something like scenes #2,#5,#1,#3,#6,#4), and it is weighed down by unlikely dialogue with too many self-references to cinematic conventions.I was expecting more because so many people liked this movie, but the very things that some liked or that only slightly bruised the product for others, are major peeves for me. I did not care for the self- consciousness of the dialogue, plot or camera work.The P.I. who learned his trade from a book is an annoying gimmick, as is the surveilling detective as a metaphor for guys stalking women. I can only say in its favor that this movie has several good performances and gave work to some of my favorites including Robert Forster ("Jackie Brown") in cameo roles.

Since so few reviews on this, and I had been fortunate to get the chance to see it shown, thought I should add another: as I understand that the director, Dennis Hauk having made it in now becoming so rare 'celluloid' filmstock (at 35 mm, too), also 'directed' it should only be released and shown in circumstances that would do it justice i.e. only at theatres that can still project film, and not appear in any digital - homes' use DVD etc – format: so for that alone, for any cinephile, cinema fan, it should be sought out.And indeed, by which to savour a rapidly becoming bygone experience, that of the rich colours and softer visual tones that original filmstock undoubtedly allows for – close up, big screen skin tones, especially – beauty, as of 'main' (?) actress, Crystal Reed, but plus including all their imperfections too, viz grizzled Robert Forster: .. and not only that, but delivered through another cinematic speciality, in that it unfolds in five continuous standard reel lengths (c.20 minutes) each (as like Hitchcock's famous attempt in 'Rope'); these all self contained vignettes of a whole, which you must slot together in the right order to get the plot line: but perhaps it is for these technicalities alone that is all this film really has to offer, to stand out worth a watch: in that being not, I would argue as others have (carelessly?) assessed, a film noir (which, come on, just has to be in even older traditional black and white? - whereas this is sumptuous colour) but is actually, of the 'gumshoe' genre. In which respect, lead player John Hawks turns in a superb suitably shabby performance.But these conceits in effect restrict the format so much so that it soon becomes clearly - stiltedly so in some dialogue exchanges, and despite, admittedly impressive fluid camera movements - so theatrical in parts, since although the camera can move about within its 20 minute (2000 feet) of film allowance, still the actors have to deliver their lines correctly to ensure the take is not ruined of course, which results in the theatrical staid like (no second take) delivery in certain segments: yet, that should be the advantage of film over theatre: that the plot and lines unfolding can so be cut and edited up to more replicate a real life style.In this respect, then some is just a little too obviously staged: e.g. the 'I'll just sit down and impromptu strum the guitar and sing' scene, where even a background violin player just happens to similarly impromptu accompany, are really only for the effect of 'wow didn't they choreograph that well?', I feel. On the other hand, another of these uninterrupted unspooling vignettes ends in an impressive shock scene (although you can see the set up telegraphed coming, half way through its 'reel') and another centred around a fast, if not already gone, disappearing into history drive in, showing a homage to film itself, in just incidentally involving how the huge horizontal reels used to be operated, is pleasing to see utilised.Otherwise, to be honest, the conceit soon becomes too contrived, so much so to begin to (irritatingly?) distract you from what should be the engrossing story, not constantly being sidelined by intrusive clever cinematic camera direction, because you are in on the way it has been made. (Big kudos though to those steadicam operators!)Then, as for the 'essential to the plot' reason dishabille of Vail Bloom portrayed, is (if undoubtedly insouciantly sexy) surely simply quite gratuitous! And for all the one continuous take bally ho, there is at the close, an obvious cut / edits – almost as though they had run out of time, manoeuvring to get across to the audience how it all fits together ..Clever – very clever (and film stock soft attractive) – but ultimately, unarresting.

"I didn't know I was doing film noir, I thought they were detective stories with low lighting!" Marie Windsor I have a neo-noir you can't refuse: Too Late. For a title vibrating with despair like that of The Big Sleep, In a Lonely Place, The Long Goodbye, and A Touch of Evil, Too Late reeks of a dark, desperate, disorienting world where a soulful and soulless private detective named Mel Sampson (John Hawkes) searches for meaning among L.A.'s damned passengers. Many of those souls are dames, femme fatals if you will, beautiful in a cheap way but deeper emotionally than you'd expect and fraught with danger for anyone who cares about them.Shot in 35 mm Techniscope or 2-perf with five 20-minute uncut chapters, Too Late is bound to be a classic take on the detective genre memorable for such hard-boiled shamuses as Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade. References to directors like Alan Rudolph and Robert Altman, not to mention Quentin Tarantino, certify first-time feature writer and director Dennis Hauck's goal to participate in the pleasantly depressive genre.Tired detective Sampson searches for a pretty young stripper, Dorothy (Crystal Reed). and eventually her murderer, now and then showing his long hair and strength but just as vulnerable as his biblical name suggests. As for her, well, dare I speculate she was searching for some rainbow's end? She was witty and vulnerable, "lost" in Elysian Park's Radio Hill of Los Angeles while encountering two drug-dealing thugs (Dash Mihok, Rider Strong) and a garrulous park ranger (Brett Jacobsen), all of whom could have as easily played in Pulp Fiction given their penchant for witty talk laced with cinematic references.Just as memorable and just as noir-naughty are Robert Forster's wealthy strip-club owner, Gordy Lyons; his dangerously desperate wife, Janet (Vail Bloom); and Dorothy's former stripper grandmother, played by Joanna Cassidy, who appeared in the cult classic Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead, referenced here no doubt to geeks' glee.Although I've not mentioned much plot in this review, you get the idea that various fringey L. A. lost-soul types are the interest in this noir homage, at least to my nostalgic, crime-porned, cinema-drenched sensibility."One difference between film noir and more straightforward crime pictures is that noir is more open to human flaws and likes to embed them in twisty plot lines." Roger Ebert