Average Rating: 5.6/10
Reviews Counted: 35
Fresh: 22 | Rotten: 13
Edward Norton delivers one of his finest performances in Leaves of Grass, but he's overpowered by the movie's many jarring tonal shifts.
Average Rating: 5.2/10
Critic Reviews: 12
Fresh: 6 | Rotten: 6
Edward Norton delivers one of his finest performances in Leaves of Grass, but he's overpowered by the movie's many jarring tonal shifts.
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Average Rating: 3.2/5
User Ratings: 13,596
An Ivy League classics professor becomes mixed up in his lawless identical twin's drug dealings after receiving word that his brother has been murdered, and returning to Oklahoma to discover he's been hoodwinked. To say that Bill Kincaid (Edward Norton) is ashamed of his upbringing is an understatement at best. Turning his back on his working-class parents and working diligently to erase any traces of his Southern accent, Bill develops a reputation as a true scholar dedicated to excellence and
Apr 2, 2010 Wide
Oct 12, 2010
$68.0k
First Look Studios
All Critics (35) | Top Critics (12) | Fresh (22) | Rotten (13) | DVD (4)
An offbeat thriller that is deepened -- rather than derailed -- by its tricky shift from darkly funny to just plain dark.
As a writer-director, Nelson keeps the laughs coming at a steady pace, and never condescends to his articulate redneck characters.
Mr. Norton is a pleasure to watch, and so is everyone else.
It's not the violence itself that bothers me, it's just that it completely destroys the tone of the movie.
You could get whiplash from his movie's mood swings.
The movie bubbles with intellectual curiosity and narrative ambition. And for that I dig it, even if Leaves of Grass has the habit of swerving and sometimes lurching from tone to tone.
Maybe too small-scale to be anything truly special, but an original and witty film that both surprises and entertains.
Essentially Deliverance cross-bred with A History of Violence...Leaves of Grass is a peculiar rural yarn and a sweet, assured examination of lost innocence and brotherhood that succeeds largely because of Norton's multi-faceted performance.
This is a very personal film from Nelson that is jam packed with ideas and heavily influenced by the Coen Brothers...
The DVD extras give the film a boost with a well done "making-of?" featurette and a commentary of the film by director Nelson, star Norton and producer William Migliore.
It's a jarringly realistic hybrid that echoes the more surreal aspects of real, rural life, and Norton walks/ambles through it all, sporting dueling personalities and distinct accents, but one very serious heart.
Many clichés in uneven and odd mix of guffaws and philosophical analysis. . .[C]onsiderable violence surprisingly erupts...[M]ost fun is watching Norton interact with Norton.
Suffice to say that Blake Nelson doesn't have the visual gifts of his Minnesotan mentors, leaving us undistracted by surface flair and fully focused on his cartoonish characters and ragged, oddly callow script.
... through it all, the two performances by Edward Norton feel natural, relaxed, utterly unlike a gimmick.
This is Tim Blake Nelson's affectionate and curious vision of his native Oklahoma, and what he sees makes for a uniquely restless, ribald motion picture.
The mirror image gag is one of the oldest in the book, and yet, if done well, it never really gets old.
Emerging director Tim Blake Nelson takes another step up with this comedy drama starring Edward Norton in what might go down as Norton's best performance yet.
The picture loses its mind on an abrasive hunt for irreverence, twisting something securely oddball into an affected, unnecessarily toxic tale of brilliant knuckleheads living up to their Tulsa potential.
a fitfully enjoyable but unsatisfying playground of ambition and occasional wit
I'm a big Edward Norton fan. "American History X", "The Score", "Primal Fear" are all three great movies, anchored by Norton. Even his take on playing "The Hulk" was fantastic. However, even he doesn't make great movies every time out. "Leaves of Grass" is about twin brothers Bill and Brady(both played by Norton).
January 1, 2012Super Reviewer
A pseudo-philosophical comedy that begins well but then dives into sheer stupidity after the first forty minutes. Even if Edward Norton is great playing twin brothers, the plot seems absolutely pointless, shifting with no tact from light comedy to overviolent thriller and cheap melodrama.
October 31, 2011Super Reviewer
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