Good acting, as you'd expect given the cast. Visually nice too. Sadly that's it, pretty pointless movie.

Impressive. Foreboding atmosphere throughout. Unusual setting (New Mexico). Great acting from great actors. Loved the music. An intelligent film about justice for (black) people.

Forest Whitaker plays recently-paroled man in New Mexico who did hard time for killing a deputy officer, hoping to restart his life but butting heads with Harvey Keitel as the five-times-reelected sheriff who believes Whitaker is "a loose cannon." Mild French-Belgian-Algerian-US co-production, a remake of the French-Italian 1973 version, seems to be on a well-trodden dramatic path--that of a battle-of-wills between the two men--and yet, it doesn't even follow through on this angle (it's too limp). At its core, the picture is an updated western (with new-fangled overtures to Allah), and Harvey Keitel's hard-ass sheriff is a character we've seen him do before on better occasions. Brenda Blethyn upstages both men as Whitaker's parole officer. ** from ****

I saw this film at the Berlinale film festival 2014, where it was part of the official competition. It allows us sufficient time to get acquainted with the five main characters: (1) Garnett who is just released from prison after an 18 years sentence, (2) the sheriff whose deputy was killed by Garnett some 18 years ago, (3) an underworld-er who wants to enlist Garnett for a shady job, (4) Garnett's new girl friend who he met after his release while opening a bank account, and (5) last-but-not-least his assigned parole officer who takes her job very seriously, and even ruffles the sheriff's furs when the need arises. We also meet several side characters who are portrayed very well, in spite of their much shorter appearance. Yet, the full two hours running time stretches our patience unnecessarily.The plot itself is not new in essence (ex-convict tries to keep on track), but this variant offers many novel directions given the ingredients included. The finale is not fully predictable, which is a good thing. Yet, I was not very satisfied with the chosen outcome (no details to avoid spoilers), preferably something more optimistic could be thought of. Further, I'm not sure about the need for some side tracking sub-plots, e.g. Garnett's conversion to Islam, the issues around the Mexican border, and amply showing off the landscape. Not all these are necessary for the core story, maybe even deemed redundant and better left out to get a more concise story.