MONTANA directed by Jennifer Leitzes (USA, 1998)
When a great actor dies, particularly in tragic circumstances, there’s an understandable temptation to praise all his performances as epic and/or essential.
Philip Seymour Hoffman appeared in many fine movies but all actors must live (and die) with their share of turkeys.
Put another way, for every Capote there will always be a Montana.
This movie is billed as a gangster comedy but this Tarantino for dummies misfires on every level.
Robbie Coltrane is the most unconvincing bad guy boss ever and his band of criminal misfits only succeed in shooting each other.
Hoffman is cast as Duncan, a scheming but inept accountant, a part he’s well suited for if he had a half way decent script. But the screenplay is dreadful, the characters are wooden and the soundtrack is hideous. These are impossible odds to overcome.
If you Google the director’s name you’ll find that Jennifer Leitzes now runs a designer jewelry company – a career move I entirely approve of.
There’s a song by Anthony Hamilton called ‘Freedom’ on the official soundtrack album to Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained but one notable absence from the disc is the song with the same title by Richie Havens.
