What I loved most: Ryan Gosling

What I really hated: The story fizzled as the movie went on

The show made me a Ryan Gosling fan. Seriously. The story is simple but the telling of it was tedious. The movie got boring after the halfway mark, when Will's (play by Ryan Gosling) career goes down the drain along with the case. There just weren't enough highs in the story to keep the audience hooked. The movie felt like an exercise on cinematography. Everything, from the framing to the lighting and camera movement, felt bigger than the story itself. Like the cinematographer was more keen on showing off his skills rather than tell the story. And that's bad cos the audience shouldn't feel the existence of the camera.

One of the first few courtroom drama for 2007. Anthony Hopkins stars in this movie as a man who found out that his wife is having an affair and murders her. He then carefully navigates his way out of trouble through his ingenious planning. Ryan Gosling plays the up and coming hotshot lawyer that is thrown this case as he is about to exit the government lawyer office and into the high-flyers of the private sector and gets drawn in, due to his streak to win. Both actors gave good performances in this movie. The plot was quite engaging, making you think what moves the accused would take next to keep himself out of jail. One moves and the other tries to counter his move, keeping the audience at the edge of their seats. Finally a plot twist and of course good triumps over evil but what the twist is, catch the movie to find out! Overall, a good whodunit movie but still not Oscar-worthy.

What I loved most: Performance of actors

What I really hated: Nonexistent sound track

Both Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling gave a mesmerizing and charismatic performance as they play opposing sides of the law. Hopkins has once again given us a great depiction of an intelligent psychotic killer. Rosling's development as a social climber to a justice seeker is captivating as well. There is just enough humour to lighten the mood but not spoil the seriousness of the situation.