Violet & Daisy (R)
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This is the kind of movie that makes me hate critics. It got negative reviews, and mostly the reasons that critics disliked it were reasons I liked it a lot. I mean... they see it as a rip-off of Quentin Tarantino, whereas I saw it as being obviously Tarantino-like, but not in a derivative way. I thought it did the sort of things Tarantino does... nearly as well as he does them. But at the same time, there's another aspect to it... and I wouldn't feel confident in trying to compare it to a specific artist's work. But I kind of feel like the movie is maybe trying to do something similar to some other artist, and doing it well. Or, maybe I could say that Tarantino himself tries to put different elements into his movies, and this movie does some elements not quite as well as he does, but maybe does some other elements a bit better than he does. Of course, in the end, it's all a matter of opinion. But I don't give a fuck if anyone else's opinion is drastically different from mine. Is this film truly great? Um, no. But I dig what it's trying to do, and I think it did it pretty well.

Anyway... there are these two hit-women, Violet (Alexis Bledel) and Daisy (Saoirse Ronan). Violet is the more experienced and jaded of the two, while Daisy is sort of unrealistically innocent and naive. And neither one comes across as the sort of hardened bad-ass you see in most movies about people like this, even if they're really good at playing roles and shooting guns. Violet herself has more of a child-like demeanor than you'd expect in an assassin, even if she obviously understands the darkness of the world more than Daisy does. (Then again, Daisy could surprise you with how savvy she can be, at times.) Well, after we see them pull off one job, they're supposed to have some time off. But they get offered a job that at first they turn down, but later accept, because they want to make some money to buy dresses from the new fashion line of some pop idol they're obsessed with. The person they're supposed to kill had stolen some money from their boss, and didn't even try to hide it. (At first I suspected someone else had stolen it, and was framing this guy. But I was wrong.)

So, Violet and Daisy go to his home while he's out, and wait for him to return. But they end up falling asleep. When this guy (played by James Gandolfini) comes home, he basically just waits for them to wake up. He wants to be killed. And that throws the assassins for a loop. They become intrigued, and want to learn why he wants to be killed. Meanwhile, he had also stolen from some other criminal, so there are more assassins coming to kill him. And all the while, Violet and Daisy (especially Daisy) get to know their target better, and so become conflicted about whether or not to kill him.

Beyond that, I guess I don't want to reveal any more of the plot. And look, I'll totally understand if anyone else thinks I'm crazy to like the film as much as I did. Hell, I'm not sure how much I'd want to watch it a second time. There are probably any number of criticisms one could make that I'd agree with. But I still thought it was a really good movie, with good characters, and it was funny, and interesting, and... I don't know. Sort of believable, particularly because of how unbelievable it seems by normal movie standards. (Like, seriously... I'm pretty sure a lot of people who find most Hollywood movies unbelievable would somehow find this move even more unbelievable specifically because of how different it is from most Hollywood movies. As if that made any sense.) I'm not even saying this movie is even remotely realistic. Hell no. But if I'm going to be suspending disbelief anyway, I'll bloody well suspend it any way I see fit. Especially if I like the characters. And in this case, I definitely do. Fucking realism be damned.