robertllr First of all, "Journey To The End Of The Night" has nothing to do with the 1934 novel of the same title by Louis Ferdinand Celine. If the script writers borrowed Celine's title for some allusive reason, it escapes me.The movie is an unremarkable and predictable crime thriller/family drama. The dimly-lit and grainy cinematography--set in the seamy red-light district of Sao Paulo, Brazil--is nothing special; and the sentimental sound track, weak plot, and un-inspired dialogue contribute nothing original to the genre.The roles are thankless, and the actors in them give about the performances you'd expect from their B-class status. The worst by far is Brendan Frazer. He makes a fine Dudley Do-Right; but his performance as a ruthless crime lieutenant is laughable. Frazer's baby face, squeaky voice, and limited range couldn't convey threat, malice, or even the weak psychological conflict the script calls for--even on his best days. The other performers are just about as bad.However, there is one astonishing exception to all this lack-luster ness; and that is the performance of rap artist Mos Def, who plays a Nigerian dishwasher turned drug courier (when the real courier--a genuine tough guy--drops dead while having sex with a transsexual prostitute.) Mos Def's character, Wemba, is a retiring young man, a meek, short-statured student with only the most modest of aspirations in life. When we first meet him, his drug-dealing boss asks him about his background. Mos Def replies laconically; but his dropped words, half-finished sentences, and subtle facial gestures convey his melancholy character and difficult and disappointed past to us at once. It's a beautiful morsel of acting.Wemba takes on the job partly out of need, but mainly out of loyalty to his boss. While the written role of Wemba is hardly Shakespearian, Mos Def is brilliant in what he does with it. And while one could barely give a damn what happens to the rest of these flat and unappealing characters, Mos Def creates for his unenthusiastic but diligent courier a vivid, likable, three-dimensional figure--a simple soul who, when push comes to shove, shows unexpected courage—not because he has anything to back it up, but just because he is good guy--the sort of person who naturally does the right thing. He is not smart, or capable, or strong. And when he politely sticks to his guns (figuratively speaking, he is practically the only person in the film--other than the blind soothsayer and his dog--whose isn't popping a cap into someone at some point) and defies the people who threaten him, you know that he certainly won't be rescuing his own behind.Fortunately, (for Wemba, if not for the movie) the writers have thrown a bit of magic and fate (predictable as always) into the story mix here. And it is only that little bit of luck that leaves Wemba as last man standing in this otherwise silly little drug-dealing bloodbath.I know nothing of rap music, or Mos Def's career as a performer. But, if this part is any indication of his thespian potential, I'd say that boy can act!

Sarah Davide "Journey to the End of the Night" defies any instant classification. It touches on many genres and plays more like an amalgamation of films. The effect is wonderful and stirring and by the end of the movie you feel like you've been on an emotional roll-coaster. The plot is plain. Brendan Fraser is in love with his father's wife. He wants to run away with her and start over in a new country. Brendan has no respect for the old man because he is essentially a pimp -- (Scot Glen owns a nightclub where girls sell themselves). One night a man is "offed" in the club and leaves behind a bounty of drugs. Scot Glen and Brendan decide to sell the drugs rather than hand it over to the cops -- (Scot Glen has his own designs about starting over and getting out of the business). They enlist the help of one of their lowly employees (Mos Def) whom they know very little about. Only that he is Nigerian and that he can speak the same language of their buyer. Mos Def embarks on his mission which takes on a heroic, almost mythic resonance in one of the most humanistic, gentle roles I have ever observed. He progress is derailed by random violence which leaves him without his cell phone to call Scot Glen and Brendan Fraser (who now believe that Mos Def has absconded with the cash).Scot Glen in an act of desperation visits an old Fortune Teller to try to enlist his powers in finding Mos Def. Brendan Fraser begins to panic because his plan on getting away is beginning to unravel.Mos Def is rescued, as it were, by a beautiful young maiden (Alice Braga) who--because of a fight with her boyfriend--is lost in the world with no where to go.Mos Def and Alice team up for a heartbreaking and tragic passage back to the city. We see that despite some affinities there love is not to be. Meanwhile, back at the club Brendan Fraser stews over the missing drug mule, and begins to melt down. He confronts his father in brilliant "actorly" moment that redeems his character. We find through classic monologue why he is the way he is (And Fraser does some of his greatest work in this scene).The ending of "Journey to the End of the Night" borders on the fantastical and is wildly ambitious. Perhaps overly so and perhaps not entirely convincing. But no less great. The film is chocked filled with energy and passion, bloodshed, car chases, shoot outs, and moments of supreme gentleness. Not for the squeamish. This film is going to become a cult classic.

thiskidgotmoxie ...and it is, without a doubt, one of the WORST films I have ever had the misfortune to sit through. It is a truly awful, offensive, unpleasant, and ham-fisted movie.Let me get the tiny bits of praise out of the way right now. Both female leads are good, but totally under used. The film looks good, but this is achieved by the lazy trick of filming a city at night through different filters (here blue and yellow mostly). Also, Mos Def is good.However, the character he plays is a horrible racist stereotype, the "good and loyal black servant," that I haven't seen in cinema in decades! He's a decent enough actor, and manages to bring some humour and humanity to an essentially one dimensional role, but he must have been embarrassed sitting up there watching his Steppin' Fetchit role unfold. It's lucky for him that he wasn't really on screen that much.Brendan Fraser was AWFUL. I've never seen a good film with him in it, and to be honest I didn't know he was in this (just there to see Mos, or Mr. Def as referred to in the credits!), but he is a terrible actor. At some moments, when he was supposed to be portraying the low point to which his character had sunk, he was overacting so badly that at least four or five people around me started laughing! The character he played was incomprehensible too. In an attempt to have his character merely seem complex, he veers wildly between sobbing schoolboy, brutal sadist, doting boyfriend, and petulant cell-phone destroyer (after he threw his second or third phone out the window, we all started laughing at the idiocy of having the exact same "lead character is violent and unstable, he destroys phones" motif repeated again and again). Scott Glen was okay, I suppose. He did what he could with some of the worst dialogue ever committed to film, but his character just didn't have anything going on beyond some very obvious and heavy-handed moments with his young son ("see, he is a complex man, he is a pimp who loves his son, I am a smart writer/director!).As I said, earlier, both Alice Braga and Catalina Sandino Moreno are good, but have nothing to do except look scared and get battered.By the way, if you ever have the misfortune of seeing this film, please pay attention to the use of language. The clumsy way all the characters, even when it's a Nigerian talking to a Brazilian, transition into English is hilarious!The "plot" is a derivative mess of neo-noir clichés, and is so full of holes that I could have driven a bus up the red carpet and through the movie with no problems. I'm not going to dignify the film by summarizing it, but lets just say that it involves a drug deal gone bad, a crooked cop, a few double-crosses, and a wacky shootout where multiple people who've been shot still manage to shoot back and take their own killer out. Total bull, and ripped from so many other movies that I can't even list them, though if you've seen Lock, Stock and Reservoir Dogs (itself a near parody of other noir crime movies), then you've seen everything in this film's plot, done waaaaaay better. Oh, and there's an exotic psychic dude thrown in for good measure, just in case you didn't get the memo that read "Brazil is exotic."And so, we come to the worst part of the movie: its location in Brazil. There is absolutely NO NECESSARY REASON for this movie to be set in Brazil, other than to dress a super-crappy crime film up with exoticized characters (in short, racist stereotypes) and locales. As it began, I was hoping for something that actually engaged with the complexities of Brazil, like maybe City of God, but this film is the polar opposite to that one! Do not believe anyone who says this movie is like City of God! They share nothing in common, Journey to the End of the Night could be set in any city in the world. The hilarious thing is, I was watching it and thinking that here was another example of a filmmaker using an exotic/strange/dangerous setting to make a totally boring movie SEEM more interesting, and then the director, Eason, gets up in the Q&A session and ADMITS IT!!! Someone asked why Brazil, and he basically said "No reason, just wanted to set the story somewhere exotic!" And he had the gall to suggest that he was thereby doing something revolutionary, because this was a movie that wasn't about middle class white men! Eh, hello, you hypocrite?? The two leads are middle class white men!! The movie is about them, they just happen to be in Sao Paolo exploiting Brazilians and an African! They're on the screen the majority of time, and are the only characters with any discernible agency.I could go on and on, and I have probably gone on way too long, but I'm procrastinating on some work, and this was easily one of the worst films I have ever, ever seen... and I've seen The Avengers!In sum: the characters are terrible, most of the performances are as bad as the characterizations, the plot is boring and derivative, the dialogue is laughable, and the politics of the whole endeavour are deeply suspect. Eason made a film about some white men exploiting some Brazilians. He somehow missed the irony of his being a white man setting a movie in Sao Paolo JUST to exploit stereotypical ideas about Brazil...

dianahaslerum I saw this at the Tribeca FF on Friday night. The cast ensemble is one of the finest, the problem was the bad script and the out of control actors. Catalina looked like a deer caught in the headlines, the director could not seem to get her to emote anything more mild confusion. Brendan Fraser (of whom I'm a big fan) just spun out of control, it was over-acting that should have clearly been reined in. The death scene by Scott Glen at the end elicited many a laugh, which says a lot about the bad script. To suddenly come back to life just long enough to save his love and friend with the final words of "go...." before croaking was hilarious; I felt bad but could not help laughing out loud (actually I was hysterical with laughter). A big plus to Mos Def and Alice Braga, they were the saving grace of the film, obviously in little need of direction, I hope to see them all in a better directed film. Agreed that the cast seem uninterested or perhaps defensive during the Q&A session, but I can't blame them after the audience's reactions.