I can’t help but feel disappointed Blood Ties didn’t live up to expectations. A film directed by Guillaume Canet who co-wrote the film with James Gray with a cast that includes Billy Crudup, Clive Owen, Marion Cotillard, Mila Kunis, Zoe Saldana, James Caan, Noah Emmerich and Matthias Schoenaerts should have been a lot better than it was and actually could have been had it been about 90 minutes longer or about 30 minutes shorter. With how many characters and plot threads the film had it just didn’t work. As I wrote in my review from Cannes, “[A]t only two-and-a-half hours he doesn’t have enough time to give them room to breathe.”
It’s a shame, really, because had it turned out better it really could have put Canet on a much larger global map, but as it is, Blood Ties is likely to end up in the hands of Magnolia or IFC and getting an On Demand release before hitting domestic theaters.
Simplifying things a bit, the story is set in New York, 1974, and focuses on two brothers; Frank (Billy Crudup) a police officer and Chris (Clive Owen) an ex-con fresh out of jail and looking for a job that won’t find him back in a jail cell. Things happen…
I give more story details in The Playlist]
