Went to see Empire with Jeff from work tonight. The movie focuses on urban drug-dealer Vic Rosa (John Leguizamo), and how he tries to make it big and get out of a life of crime. Peter Sarsgaard plays Jack, a Wall Street investment broker who offers Vic a deal that he can’t lose on – and become rich in the process. But is Jack just playing Vic? The film was entertaining, but nothing special. It felt like an amalgam of pretty much every bad-guy-wants-to-go-good film I’ve seen, but considering it was by a first-time feature director, it wasn’t all that bad – and stylistically there were a few good moments that stood out.
I spent most of the film, actually, trying to figure out where I had seen Sarsgaard before – and then I remembered – K:19 – The Widowmaker. The music by Rueben Blades was a rather interesting mix of urban beats, rhythms, and hip-hop. It was hard to tell where the line between score and songs started. Of course, not a note of his stuff is on the soundtrack album (surprise surprise). You could probably get away with never seeing this movie, and be just fine with it. But if you wanna check out a gritty urban tale with a rather forced and Shakespeare-inspired ending, then by all means, give it a whirl.