Ceticultsot Beautiful, moving film.

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

lathe-of-heaven Okay... The direction, cinematography, the mood, and the pacing were done brilliantly and were truly captivating. And, unlike other reviewers here, I REALLY like Edward Burns; I think he is a cool kat in the vein of a milder Ben Affleck (PLEASE, do yourself a HUGE favour and watch 'CONFIDENCE'; DAMN good film!!!) BUT... And it is a BIG BUT like Mariah Carey's... It just isn't that terribly imaginative or deep. So, if you like your films very simple and straight-forward, you might like it. HOWEVER... If, like me, you like to have a little more mystery, imagination, and flavour in your movies, the ending of this film will leave you flatter than Chaz Bono...The movie is very well made, but, anyone who enjoys a bit more mystery and other-worldly flavour in their films should steer away and watch something else, because it is highly likely the ending will greatly disappoint you.Thus the extreme disparity and polarized reviews of this film...

samkan I like to like movies that qualify as small gems. TRK had all the potential for such and, for the first forty minutes or so, looked to qualify. The acting wasn't bad (Ed Burns is just a bit too low key) the script is crisp and the pacing, shoot and story suspenseful. Indeed there were a dozen different prospects for; e.g., who the bad guy was going to be. I can't agree with some of the other comments herein that there was enough mood, fine acting, dialog, etc., to distinguish TRK as excellent cinema. But again, after more than a half hour I'm totally absorbed by the plot potential.It is almost as if TRK sets up the viewer for a thousand possibilities only to intentionally fulfill absolutely none of them. A move "fizzles" when it paints itself into a corner then escapes in a clumsy manner. TRK paints itself into a corner and then climbs out a window. Again, there are not enough fine points about this movie to make it enjoyable on another level. Virtually every aspect of the build-up centers on facts, twists, questions, etc., that go unanswered. It is truly difficult to imagine what the makers of TRK wanted the viewer to enjoy about this movie.

Robert J. Maxwell This deliberate mystery about the death of a young man at an exclusive boy's school is surprisingly good. Edward Burns is a local police officer who suspects that foul play was involved. The body was found drowned in the local ice-laden river but his lungs contained traces of things found in toilet bowls. Was it a hazing accident? Well -- close but no cigar.Burns' investigation must struggle through a thicket of opposition. His colleagues don't want to push the matter because the Haddon School is their benefactor. The school, with its frigid headmaster, isn't interested in probing too deeply because, well, after all -- foul play at Haddon? Burns himself is impelled mainly because he once helped his older brother commit suicide and perhaps, in solving the riddle of this case, he can partly redeem himself. Along the way, he spends a good deal of time with the dead boy's girl friend, a frizzy red head. And he meets and makes love to Jennifer Ehle, a blond photographer who is about to wed someone else. In the end, Burns, having found out the answer, decides that disclosure isn't necessary and certainly won't promote anyone's happiness, so he invents an explanation that absolves everyone of guilt.The performances are all good, mostly from unfamiliar performers. Rachel Lefevre is the dead student's girl friend, not exactly gorgeous, plump-lipped and long-haired and sturdy looking, but she's quite attractive in an everyday way. Jennifer Ehle as the slightly whimsical photographer is Meryl Streepish and her romance with Burns isn't in the least convincing. Burns is rather good. He's a fine actor, and a fine actor without the brutish charm of a Johnny Depp or a Brad Pitt. His voice is high and it cracks often. Its most important feature is that it sounds believable. If Burns himself is particularly handsome, the fact was beyond my grasp, but I hope not. If he gets the applause he deserves, it would be cheapened a little if he were a heart throb. WILL KEN DITCH JENNIFER? I can see him in the tabloids now. But with any luck he'll be no more supermarket fodder than Anthony Hopkins or Ian McKellar.If there's a problem with the film it's that it's a little TOO deliberate. And it swings from one sub-plot to another and back again and sideways, like a simple harmonic oscillator, just passing through the central story line from time to time. There are moments when it's entirely possible to forget what the movie is about.Partly because any viewer is likely to be distracted by the gorgeous, wintry Nova Scotia settings. At time the snow is blue or yellow and seems to have leaped straight out of a post-impressionist painting. The small-town streets are choked with drifts and the village itself, which ought to be pretty dismal, looks more like a vacation snapshot. Rarely has a winter landscape had such luster.One of the qualities that makes it so easy to recommend this is that it's made for adults -- or, more precisely, for people with an attention span that hasn't been cut off at the knees by MTV and commercials and glitzy news sound bites. You have to settle back to watch it, fold your hands behind your head, relax, and sort of slit your eyes slightly.

scotmac mac This movie has many problems. The acting is not great. It is slow. It does not develop the characters. And the plot is not interesting enough, nor developed enough.They never develop any of the characters, not even the main character Abe. They had many chances to develop his character, but instead just kept adding in trivial scenes. It feels as if they are trying to get "through" all of the book, instead of correctly editing it down to a good movie.Even the name of the movie has nothing really to do w/ the plot.Finally, Ed Burns was completely miscast. He is WAY too aristocratic to be a cop. Besides his accent is completely incorrect for the local, etc. And he can NOT disguise it.