City of Ghosts (2002)

To me this film is good. Now I won't get too elaborate or pretentious, (as most writers or critics do on IMDb). What I liked about this film was that it was a simple con man story. Now a simple con man story is hard to do in my opinion, an almost impossible feat, so many people get caught up in the twists and explosions, and bs that the con man's life has to entail. Matt's role character is the, "wrong place wrong time sort of guy" (What a great line!) likable and looking for an out and a release from the 6 lifetimes of bad Karma. And that's what he does, there is a morality tale that isn't preachy or too expositional, that's just the way it is, you make your choices and maybe there's a bigger choice that's already made for you. The Cambodian landscape is a very "cracked windshield" sort of noir to quote Dillon. I really loved that he used his surroundings without fear. Bad luck for bad actions, in time working towards something inescapable, one's own choices to be a better person. Two thumbs way the hell up.

Fmovies: Matt Dillon co-authored, directed and starred in this medium-budget drama- thriller about a front-man (Dillon) and a con-man (Caan) connected by more than just an apprenticeship. The directing is very good, and the finished product is mostly polished and well paced. The acting is superb, with Caan, Dillon, Depardieu and Kem Sereyvuth giving memorable performances. The story line is also good, though not structurally original, and the script only fails in a few places. Part of the problem with the script may come from the fact that Dillon attempted to pack so much material into it - simultaneously making the protagonist a fully realized and sympathetic character and causing some important plot points such as those illustrating the developing romance between Dillon and McElhone to appear as little more than distracting loose threads.

Dillon and Caan have been working together since Dillon was nine years old. Both are con-artists pulling off elaborate insurance and development schemes, and Caan is Dillon's mentor. After one of these schemes goes bad, Dillon flees the US to try to find Caan in P'Nom Phen, Cambodia, where most of the story takes place. Just as Dillon manages to catch up with his mentor, things start to go much much worse, and the audience is caught in a shell game, wondering, to the end, who is conning who and how bad it might really get. All throughout this, Dillon's character is explored, developed, and grown into somebody markedly different from who he was at the beginning of the film. And the film ends up as much a character study as a thriller.

Some will likely find the lazy pace of this film grating. Others will be annoyed by the dialog-driven plot and the frequent pastiches of strangely alienating Cambodian scenery. This is a film which fits squarely in the independent art film tradition, and so, it won't appeal to most Hollywood action and crime drama fans. For my part, I was mesmerized by the soundtrack and Cambodian imagery, almost to the point that I no longer cared about the plot.

I'll look forward to Mr. Dillon's next film.

Don't know about the story and all. But having been to Combodia, all the crazyness makes a lot of sense! Great shots of the country and Dillon has got a really good feel for it. OK, the characters and parts of the story seem a bit far fetched. But knowing the country some of this stuff is not too far of! Great movie I thought! Some of the characters hanging around at that hotel are just like the people I saw back there. Also, quite a few amateur actors..which is really cool I admit though, If this film would take place in a country that I do not personally know I would probably not get much out of it. But in any way I think it is underrated lots.

City of Ghosts fmovies. Yes the resolution of the movie was somewhat weak and contrived. But when I was sitting at the movie theater I was taken away to another place for the 2 hours that I was watching the movie. Having traveled in the third world I have to say that the movie captures perfectly the atmosphere of a place that is so far away that it could exist in another space and time as well as all the strange characters that tend to inhabit places like these. May be the movie does not do a good enough job of explaining things to those who have never visited a place with a different like Cambodia but I don't think it has to. Why do moviegoers expect the director to present everything neatly arranged on a platter? I was glad to go and see a movie that did not assume that I had no knowledge of history and no sense of what is happening in the Southeast Asia. While some of the characters may seem to be cliche I have actually met people like this while traveling. Local people are very friendly they have very tough lives but they open up in incredible ways if you try to get to know them as human beings. Part of the reason we go to movies is to be taken away. For two hours I was transported to a different world. Matt Dillon had enough sense to linger his shots to reflect the fact that times flows very differently in Cambodia. The contrast between the beauty and the serenity of Cambodia with the violence that goes there is great. I think the movie was absolutely magnificent (flawed but still beautiful)and one of the best I have seen in a long time.

City of Ghosts is a exotic mystery that positively oozes atmosphere. The Cambodian setting really amounts to another character in the film, and it's obvious that Matt Dillon has a real love of the country and the people. Dillon's direction and Jim Denault's cinematography do a marvelous job capturing the quirky and sometimes mystical nuances of this part of the world. Little details are woven into the scenes that really reminded me of what it's like to travel there.

Dillon did nearly everything right in tackling his first directing project. He picked an underused and exotic locale, a good production crew, and surrounded himself with top-notch, veteran acting talent. Depardieu, Caan, and especially Skarsgard do a terrific work bringing to life their shady characters. Newcomer Kem Sereyvuth does a nice job playing Dillon's taxi driver/savior Sok. Dillon's character Jimmy, ironically, is probably the least interesting of the bunch. But Dillon as always gets through on his amazing good looks, and has enough acting chops to not embarrass himself. The same can be said for Natascha McElhone who is so gorgeous it doesn't really matter what she's saying anyway.

The film moves at a somewhat slow pace, giving the story and characters lots of time to develop. Occasionally this can be an issue - sometimes time was spent on sequences that didn't contribute much to the final story. For example the opening New York scenes could have been trimmed down quite a bit and nothing would have been lost. But this film is clearly about establishing mood, and on the whole that's exactly what it accomplishes. The mysterious music and long, lingering shots of Asian street and country life are may seem indulgent to some but I thought they worked really well.

The only part of this film that I could take any real issue with was the script. Written in the film noir who-can-you-trust style, I think it would have been better if it had been simplified a bit. Credit Dillon with making the complexities mostly work, but a few less red herrings and a more dramatic final twist would have really elevated the film. However, I enjoyed City Of Ghosts quite a bit, Dillon has distinguished himself and clearly has some interesting directorial work ahead of him if he keeps at it.

Set in Cambodia a generation after a bloody revolution and civil war, this film follows the adventures of a smalltime crook, Jimmy, who is tracking down an older man responsible for an insurance scam and who has absconded with the money. He arrives in a country full of gangsters and opportunist thieves - not knowing who to trust, he is robbed and beaten up as often as any hero of a film noir movie.

Modern Cambodia is depicted as a hell on Earth - with the exception of a rickshaw driver, Suk, the locals are shown as violent and untrustworthy. Once again a foreign locale is simply a backdrop for white villains to have a shootout. But this doesn't detract too much from a film that is in many ways a homage to "The Third Man", with Phnom Penh standing in for a ruined postwar Vienna, the Harry Lime-equivalent seedy and enigmatic, and the protagonist equally unsympathetic at first. Odd camera angles and flashback shots abound.

The love interest seems tacked on - and a reason for having a female character - but gives Jimmy an incentive to abandon his life of crime and go straight.

An interesting film, worth a look.