Chrysanthepop
The Russo brothers first full-length feature film 'Welcome to Collinwood' is a funny slapstick heist flick. The tagline, 'idiots make lousy criminals' sums it up quite well. The story has a European feel to it which shouldn't be a surprise since it's a remake of 'I Soliti Ignoti' but the Americanization is quite well done because it looks American and the jokes work very well. While there is a moderate dose of slapstick, the dialogues are quite cleverly written.The slightly washed out colours and less glamorous contributes to the atmosphere and gives it an old school. The sets look like those of old Western flicks except that the cowboys are long gone. It's apparent that the story doesn't take place in modern time and I'm glad that the writers chose not to modernize it too much. The tension is maintained very well as the idiots go about attempting to carry out their plan.However, the ending slightly disappoints. Given the way the story was building up, I expected to end with a bang. The actual ending is quite lowkey but not a bad one.All the actors do a wonderful job. Sam Rockwell, William H. Macy, the late Michael Jeter and Patricia Clarkson are outstanding. They are brilliantly supported by Luis Guzman, Andy Davoli, Jennifer Esposito and Gabrielle Union.Overall, 'Welcome to Collinwood' is hilarious and I wouldn't mind revisiting sometime in the future.
hatorikid
Welcome to Collinwood is a lot of things, but it is none of the following:A George Clooney star vehicle Unfunny Un-OriginalAnd yes i know, the basis for the movie is another movie. But as far as Hollywood goes, this may rank with their most authentic outputs this decade - and for me, it does.The movie is from start to finish, an absolute gas. Here's why.There isn't a bad performance in the film. The funny parts are funny. The edgy parts are edgy. The script contains, not a dull moment of dialogue The cinematography is fresh and yes beautiful. And it doesn't conform to the Hollywood norm (you'll see what i mean, when you see the film)When i was a kid, i remember seeing advertisements for the film. This film went under the radar after not grossing much at the box office, and isn't even a cult classic. The reason why Transformers 2, is seen as acceptable by average movie goers, is because they are used to seeing Transformers 2. If film's as original and funny as this were pumped out as often as multi-million pieces of s**t, the cinematic experience would be a much fresher place - When 'they' say they don't make em like they used to, 'they' didn't see Welcome to Collinwood.A fun, mini-masterpiece of caper comedy, that refuses to compromise. One of my favourites.
Boba_Fett1138
Before George Clooney directed Sam Rockwell in his directorial debut "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind", they starred together in this movie. George Clooney also was involved with this movie as a producer, along with Steven Soderbergh, which shows that they really believed in this project. In potential this also seems like a fine and entertaining project, that is in the same line with movie-remakes such as "Ocean's Eleven" and "The Italian Job" but somehow this movie is only halve successful, or at least it isn't as good as it could had been.The movie its characters are all being played by some fine well known actors but a shame is that the characters are not really given enough room to develop. Even though in their potential they could had turned into fun and enjoyable characters, they are now only characters that mildly entertain because mostly of some of the more quirky sequences that are in the movie. The fact that they are being played doesn't change much to this, even though they prevent their characters from ever becoming a total bore or perhaps even annoying, or anything like that at all.It's of course due to the writing that the characters aren't used to their full potential. I can only assume that the original Italian movie "I Soliti ignoti" works out much better than this movie does. The movie relies too much on its simple story and predictable way of storytelling.Nevertheless the movie is simply still a very fun one to watch maybe because of that very same simplicity. It's an harmless little caper movie, in which you simply shouldn't to worry much about the story. In that regard "Welcome to Collinwood" is still a movie that works out and simply serves its purpose well.It's a movie that you won't regret watching once you've finished it but it also is a movie you can really easily do without ever seeing.7/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/
Armando Zapata
This movie is very hilarious, and it has a great compilation of actors like William H. Macy which always have perform this kind of roles, maybe his most representative, Fargo; and George Clooney which is a very good actor showing his comedian work in brothers Cohen film "Oh brother, where art thou?" which results to be one of my favorite movies ever! But it's been hard to find "Welcome to Collinwood", here in Mexico. My city lacks of good places where to buy some good films. I tried to buy it at Blockbuster but they don't know it by the original name, so maybe it will be a little easier to find if I have the name they gave to it in Mexico, do someone knows it?, because I can't remember! Cheers. A.
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