Michael Shannon Movies Blog

  Some more early Shannon now, in what must be his first decent screen role – I’ve yet to dig up ‘Chicago Cab’ at the time of writing. He did get a couple of words in ‘Groundhog Day’ and in ‘Chain Reaction’ but here he gets a couple of lines and a character name – even an on-screen caption! The film has an ensemble of familiar faces from Billy Crudup off ‘Almost Famous’ in the lead to Holly Hunter, Jack Black and Shannon’s future on screen wife in ‘Can’t Come Out To Play’ Samantha Morton. The list of notable names doesn’t however add up to a great film and, although there are some good bits, the whole thing seems a bit insubstantial. Crudup plays the memorably named ‘Fuckhead’ who also provides the film’s narration. It opens with a car crash and then the familiar, ‘Wait I’m getting ahead of myself’ before we go into flashback for an hour or so before we make it back to the start. I never like this format and always think we’re getting a lot of padding before the inter...