Title: Leaves of Grass
Director: Tim Blake Nelson
Writer: Tim Blake Nelson
Starring: Edward Norton, Susan Sarandon, Keri Russell, Tim Blake Nelson
Released: 21st February 2011
Run time: 105 minutes
Tim Blake Nelson writes, directs and stars in this film about a pair of identical twins who are leading very different lives but are brought together again unexpectedly and tossed into a whirlwind of trouble.
Edward Norton (never better than when he was in films like Fight Club and Death To Smoochy) takes the central roles as identical twins Bill and Brady Kincaid. Bill is a well respected Ivy League professor of classical philosophy who is informed of his brother’s murder (by crossbow) and has to return to his home town in Oklahoma for the funeral. However when he gets there he finds that his brother Brady (a two-bit criminal drug dealer is very much alive and actually wants Bill to stand in for him (taking a trip to visit their mother, played by Susan Sarandon (Alfie)) as his ‘alibi’ while he goes off on a revenge mission against a local drug lord (played by Richard Dreyfuss (Phenomenon).
It’s a crazy scheme, that’s most likely going to go wrong. Bill doesn’t want to do it but Brady has always had a certain way of persuading his brother to do things he doesn’t necessarily want to do. Keri Russell (Waitress) pops up as Janet, a childhood friend of Bill's and turns into his love interest, while Tim Blake Nelson (so wonderful in O’ Brother Where Art Thou?) as Rick Bolger plays Brady's right hand man.
The film itself is well written if a little odd at times and adequately directed. But what exactly lured Edward Norton into the lead roles of this film? It seems a bit small fry for him. That said Norton doesn’t seem to have been on the big screen much, if at all, since the rather ill-fated (yet impressive) reboot of The Hulk. So maybe he was looking for something small and kind of Indie before heading back to the big time with another Hollywood blockbuster. Still is it just me or has his entire career seemed to go downhill since Fight Club? I mean don’t get me wrong, I think he is a fantastic actor, but does he just make bad choices? He’s been in some terrible films and also taken some terrible roles? Apparently some of it (appearing in The Italian Job for instance) was to do with contractual obligations but it can’t all be stuff that he’s being forced to do. What’s his excuse for spending an entire film behind a mask in Kingdom of Heaven which was a rubbish film anyway? Norton started his career with amazing performances in the likes of American History X and Rounders. Keeping the Faith was funny and Red Dragon was OK as far as sequels / remakes go but films such as The Painted Veil and The Illusionist were a bit dull to say the least. Mind you he did put in a cracking performance in Down In The Valley.
Anyway Leaves of Grass is so, so in terms of a film as a whole, and although it is fun seeing Norton take on two roles it’s not as impressive as Nicolas Cage’s twin brothers performance in Adaptation. The story is a bit weak in places, relying a little too heavily on co-incidence. At the end of the film you might be left feeling that the whole 105 minutes was basically about putting Norton into two roles and seeing what he could do. He does well but not quite well enough to make this film more than an average watch, which is probably why it’s gone straight to DVD, which is a real shame.
