All Hat
Year: 2007
Director: Leonard Farlinger
Stars: Luke Kirby, Lisa Ray, Rachel Leigh Cook
MPAA Rating: R
Studio: Screen Media Films
Running Time: 87 Mins
Review Rating: 3.5 Stars
Official Website: http://www.allhatthemovie.com/
All Hat recently was released on DVD last week. The film played at the 2007 Toronto Film Festival. All Hat is about a guy (Luke Kirby) who just out of prison and returning to the place that he grew up in his youth. He turns to an old friend (Keith Carradine) who’s debt and might lose his farm to a greedy gambler who plans to turn his land into a golf course. Things get more complicated when a million-dollar thoroughbred goes missing and forces the gambler to speed up the sales of the land. Soon the two plan a scheme along with the help of a female jockey and the guy’s ex-girlfriend in order to save the land before the land is taken over.
All Hat was a fun and well acted film. Leonard Farlinger‘s direction of the film was good, as he manages to capture the scenery very well. I thought, it really added to the enjoyment of the film. But one of the film’s strong assets was the acting here. I thought the acting was very good, as there were a lot of very talented character actors like Keith Carradine ( 2 Days in the Valley, Deadwood), Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters, Oz) and Graham Green (Dances with Wolves) along with Kirby, Cook and Ray who were also good. The actors’ chemistry was very good, as they played off of each other very well. They also made their characters interesting by bring personality to the characters which helped make a film like this entertaining.
Brad Smith, who also wrote the novel of the same name, wrote the screenplay here. His screenplay was good for the most part, as I enjoyed watching the film. This could have been easily a boring film but there are two things that made this film good. First, he goes a good job developing the struggles that his main character is goes through when he was let out of jail. He does that, by focusing on his friendship with Carradine’s character and the love triangle between the character and the two female leads in the film. It helps bring some interesting subplots that helped a movie like this be entertaining. Also, other thing that made this good was the fact that their was action going with the film with the greedy gambler who wants his friend’s land. It helped make this film enjoyable for me, as I’m not usually into these films that take place in the country. If there was one thing that I didn’t like about the film was that he really didn’t focused on the backstory of Kirby’s character, as I thought, he could have scripted a scene or two in the beginning to explain why the character ended in jail in the first place. But, that didn’t affect my enjoyment of the film that much.
All Hat is a nice entertaining western that will leave you entertained especially with the acting.
DVD Extras:
Cast Interviews
Deleted Scenes
All Hat was a fun and well acted film. Leonard Farlinger‘s direction of the film was good, as he manages to capture the scenery very well. I thought, it really added to the enjoyment of the film. But one of the film’s strong assets was the acting here. I thought the acting was very good, as there were a lot of very talented character actors like Keith Carradine ( 2 Days in the Valley, Deadwood), Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters, Oz) and Graham Green (Dances with Wolves) along with Kirby, Cook and Ray who were also good. The actors’ chemistry was very good, as they played off of each other very well. They also made their characters interesting by bring personality to the characters which helped make a film like this entertaining.
Brad Smith, who also wrote the novel of the same name, wrote the screenplay here. His screenplay was good for the most part, as I enjoyed watching the film. This could have been easily a boring film but there are two things that made this film good. First, he goes a good job developing the struggles that his main character is goes through when he was let out of jail. He does that, by focusing on his friendship with Carradine’s character and the love triangle between the character and the two female leads in the film. It helps bring some interesting subplots that helped a movie like this be entertaining. Also, other thing that made this good was the fact that their was action going with the film with the greedy gambler who wants his friend’s land. It helped make this film enjoyable for me, as I’m not usually into these films that take place in the country. If there was one thing that I didn’t like about the film was that he really didn’t focused on the backstory of Kirby’s character, as I thought, he could have scripted a scene or two in the beginning to explain why the character ended in jail in the first place. But, that didn’t affect my enjoyment of the film that much.
All Hat is a nice entertaining western that will leave you entertained especially with the acting.
DVD Extras:
Cast Interviews
Deleted Scenes
Good review. Interesting.