Liberty Stands Still (2002)

Boring

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Good lord is this an awful movie. The characters and say nothing that any human being would do or say. It's amazing that a lady who is head of a major gun manufacturing company is someone no one misses when she is held in the park. She is trapped chained to a hot dog stand....where of course she never has to pee...and which has conveniently placed Coke products for product placement...and the only people she speaks to are the sniper and the next the next important character needed to move the plot forward. No one calls her about missing a facial appointment or anything like that.Of course there is a bomb in the cart. Yet...with hundreds of people walking by all the time not one damn one of them ever notices that she is chained to a hot dog cart! And...with a sniper trained on her...which means there is only one single angle to shoot from but no one can figure that out...and a cop shot dead in the street for at least 12 minutes before any rescue can arrive....so nice of the dreck to inform us...NO ONE IS TAKING CHARGE OF THE AREA TO SECURE THE AREA! Not only was any legal context of the Second Amendment ever researched before writing this crap...law enforcement 101 was also skipped.This is an amazing exercise in convenience. Nobody's cell phone dies at the wrong time and the calls are not interrupted. The master villain knows everything about everyone and knows exactly when they will show up. Everything is so "pat" it is just silly.

This movie is like a theater play. There's only one location and no action. This can make good movies. Tape (www.imdb.com/title/tt0275719/) for example is an excellent movie in my opinion. Baring entirely on dialog and acting. Liberty stands still lacks these qualities and is neither entertaining nor involving. It is however very annoying from start to finish because the premise is totally unrealistic and lacks any intelligence. I don't like movies where a bad guy (or eventually not just bad Wesley the sniper) has godlike control over his victims. Judging by the presence of a lot of comments with pro firearms opinions some people tend to think this movie tries to make a political statement against firearms. That is just foolish. Of course godlike control handed by a gun is THE ultimate way to market guns. Therefor rather than being an -though original- but failed attempt at an action movie without action, or a thriller without thrills this is a far far far to long commercial for guns, I say. Mabey there is some cleverness in this crap movie for passing as the opposite.It gets two stars because just one star is reserved for ultimate crap.

Linda Fiorentino (Liberty Wallace) an international arms dealer who sells to anyone...no questions asked. While out to meet her lover, she receives a phone-call; the sniper (Welsey Snipes) who she is talking to has her in his sights, and if she fails to do as she told, she will die; and if her phone goes dead she will detonate a bomb that will destroy a city block.The idea is good, and a strong sense of tension is built up by the performances of Fiorentino and Snipes, but after a clever and intriguing build up the film does eventually fall flat. By the end you may feel that the film makers missed a good opportunity to both make a statement and make a cracking film.6/10 If you like the concept - try phonebooth, it is better executed.

Kari Skogland does an excellent job keeping this taut thriller shot in Vancouver together. If you know who Linda Fiorentino is, then that's enough reason right there to watch and she doesn't disappoint - in fact she carries most of the movie. And you may be a Wesley Snipes fan, but odds are you've not seen him do something like this before. There's also a bit role for Oliver Platt and a tonne of extras or 'almost extras', and the way Skogland sets her shots is attention-getting.Now you're going to run into the pro-Columbine people who say 'but you should have presented both sides of the issue'. To these spineless mugwumping weasels I say the following: in perhaps no country save South Africa is there as much violence as in the US. The likelihood of getting shot and killed in the US is more than four times as great as in Europe.Those are not opinions either, so there's no point complaining people have to present both sides of the issue. Those are facts.This movie is scary; it is raw; and it's made (and written) by someone with conviction. See it and be convinced.