Somebody FINALLY made a good movie out of a Lawrence Block novel

[Wade Hampton]

I just came home from seeing "A Walk Among The Tombstones," which is based on the novel of the same name by Lawrence Block. It's the most faithful and by far and away the best movie ever made from one of his books.

Not that there have been that many. "8 Million Ways To Die" was made into a bad movie starring Jeff Bridges, and "Burglar" was based on one of his Bernie Rodenbarr novels, was turned into a vehicle for Whoopi Goldberg (in the film version Bernie stood for "Bernice.") That one was a stinker, too.

Not this latest one, though. The story has been condensed, some characters combined and plot developments streamlined somewhat, but it remains very true to the book in both plot and tone.

Which is dark, frankly, quite dark, and which is not going to be to everyone's taste. But I was just delighted that they did such a good job with the material. So for those of you who enjoy what amounts to modern day film noir, I can recommend "A Walk Among The Tombstones."


Wade Hampton Miller

[The Growler]

Thanks Wade. The trailers looked good and I think I'll have to go see it.

[Rodger]

My girlfriend and I saw it last night. We both liked it quite a bit. Liam Neeson is excellent. The kid who played TJ was quite good, too.

The subject matter is quite dark and disturbing... might not be for everyone. (The Y2K references are kinda funny... no one thinks about the near-panic 1999 caused for people.)

Funny thing is, from the trailers - we thought there was some supernatural element at play. The one guy saying that the bad guys aren't human in previews... and what he does in the rooftop/pigeon scene has an "otherworldly" effect.

Good suggestion, Wade!

[Dr. Spivey]

I'll check it out, Wade. As a Lawrence Block fan, it will be nice to see one of his books done justice on the big screen.

[Wade Hampton]

Rodger wrote:

Originally Posted by Rodger

My girlfriend and I saw it last night. We both liked it quite a bit. Liam Neeson is excellent. The kid who played TJ was quite good, too.

Yeah, it was one of those fairly rare occasions when all of the actors seemed to be working for the same degree of verisimilitude and had all of their performances calibrated to the same level.

Originally Posted by Rodger

The subject matter is quite dark and disturbing... might not be for everyone.

That's that's true, though the novel it's based on was very dark, as well. It was quite true to the novel in that regard.

Originally Posted by Rodger

(The Y2K references are kinda funny... no one thinks about the near-panic 1999 caused for people.)

Yeah, I remember at the time quite a few people who struck me as WANTING to be freaked out about it, as though civilization as we know it was going to end, and only those people smart enough to stockpile Krugerrands, bottled water and cases of those little cans of Vienna sausages were going to survive the impending apocalypse...

The book itself doesn't have any of that Y2K stuff in it, as it was written well before 1999. But it was a clever way to keep the film grounded in that era.

Originally Posted by Rodger

....
Good suggestion, Wade!

Glad you liked it.

Then Dr. Spivey wrote:

Originally Posted by Dr. Spivey

I'll check it out, Wade. As a Lawrence Block fan, it will be nice to see one of his books done justice on the big screen.

After I posted here I did some more reading, and it turns out that Scott Frank, who directed, also wrote the screenplay. Prior to this film, among his many other credits he wrote the screenplay for "Out Of Sight," which was the best-ever movie version of an Elmore Leonard novel, in my opinion. I've read just about every Elmore Leonard novel that there is, and while Hollywood made a good Western out of "Hombre" back in the early 60's, they'd never made a decent version of any of Leonard's modern day crime novels until "Out Of Sight."

Here's the list of Frank's screenwriting credits, which is impressive. Not all of those movies themselves were impressive, but it's quite a list, nonetheless:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0291082/?ref_=tt_ov_wr

Anyway, it's nice to see a filmmaker trying to capture what makes a book work the way Frank has here.


whm