Where did this movie go wrong? George Clooney directing a Coen Bros script starring Matt Damon and Julianne Moore. Shouldn't that be a winning combination? So then why was it so flipping boring?
It's the 1950's (I think) Suburbia. Idyllic town, or so we think. Some mobsters come into Matt Damon's home, rough up his family, things end badly. And they get worse from there. Sounds interesting, yeah? Then why wasn't it?
Pacing was an issue, but so was tone. I think it was meant to be a dark comedy (again, Coens) but it had too serious of tone. And scenes were dragged out, they weren't snappy. The consensus on Stardust seems to be that the fault rests with Clooney, and I'm inclined to agree. Love love love him as an actor (and possibly as a person, as best as I can tell) but this movie needed to be tightened up.
The other big criticism I'm hearing is that the B storyline about an African American family moved in didn't work. I get what that story was meant to do, how the intensity was meant to parallel the A story. Again, I think Clooney dropp