Chasing Ghosts (2005)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Just perfect...

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

When I first saw Shannyn Sossamon in 'The Holiday', I wanted to see what else she had done. Well, she was great in this otherwise forgettable effort.Perhaps it is just me, but after two viewings I have little idea of what was going on. We have this dirty cop about to retire and held over to finish out a baffling murder case. For unexplained reasons, he drives around in a 1969 Ford Galaxie convertible with a police radio. He is not undercover, so why does he drive his personal car? I suppose he was watching too many episodes of 'Miami Vice' and 'Nash Bridges' where the TV heroes drove their own convertibles.Then we have the trainee partner transferring in from undercover work in Miami. Somehow, he is immediately familiar with New York City and the local criminal hierarchy. His understanding of police procedure and office politics is strangely uneven. His personnel dossier is strangely incomplete, but little interest is aroused by these discrepancies. The police chief probably was thinking about having meatloaf for lunch.The plot has the dirty cop turning in his badge and sending a confession of his crime to the daughter of the undercover cop he murdered to save himself from exposure and death. Why our man is suddenly developing a conscience is never addressed.After more murders and an attempt to question an informant who suddenly and inexplicably turned homicidal toward his police handlers, we are allowed to find out that the real transferee cop from Miami has been held captive and a ringer is about to use his position to assassinate a crime lord in his prison cell.After killing his real target, the phony cop has no difficulty escaping from prison guards and a police dragnet and boarding a private jet to fly to freedom.The final photographs that would incriminate the dirty cop never reach the police and he presumably retires to enjoy his pension. The ending of this film is just as incoherent as the plot. It would not have strained the film budget much to provide a better script that would allow the audience to know what is supposed to be going on.

Madsen does Madsen like he always does, but here it fits the movie like a glove. The cinematography is outstanding; the Director of Photography deserves an Oscar nod for doing what he did on this budget. The music is spotty, one minute it is near greatness, the next minute it seems forced and mis-matched to the tension of the film. Still, the composer did an incredible job considering his budget. He did the whole thing on a Mac, with a MOTU Traveler using samples and a single recording session with strings only. The kind of atmosphere the director (Kyle Dean Jackson) was able to stir up with such a limited budget is remarkable.There isn't a poor performance in the bunch, save one: Corey Large. Large has all the passion of a rice cake. The guy simply cannot emote, which is sad because Shannyn Sossamon gives a tour de force performance opposite someone giving her nothing. I am very interested to see what this young director will do next, because he certainly does have what it takes to make a good movie. Frankly I tend to believe that the writer, producer and (uncredited) second director Alan Pao had a LOT to do with this film's excellence. Here's hoping that we'll see many more good things from both Jackson and Pao in the future.

Chasing Ghosts is a low budget throw back to film noir flicks - lots of dead bodies,tough good guys and really nasty bad guys, convoluted subplots and scenes that don't quite make sense. Despite being a bit more confusing than it has to be, I found it fun to watch and intriguing. One of the best parts of the movie is the star, Micheal Madsen. He reminds me of one of my favorite actors, Robert Mitchum. He's got the world-weary tough guy character down and is fun to watch. The rest of the acting ranges from acceptable to downright bad (co-star Corey Large just doesn't work at all in this).The comments on the board about this movie seem a bit harsh to me. Most of the noir flicks were more about feeling and images than the actual story. And many of them had plot twists and character types in common with other movies. True, some editing would help the pacing here (that seems to be the case with so many movies these days, are the editors on strike?)and the acting could have been better but hey it was a low budget flick. Overall it reminds me of so many film noir flicks. It does a lot right and is more fun than many big budget movies out there today.

The film has its merits and is quite an accomplishment for $1 million budget that it had. The story can be slow in parts but overall if you like the intricate puzzle story then you will enjoy this film. It is not a shot em up action movie so don't go in thinking that or you will be disappointed. The acting wanes a little for the young detective but overall the cast is good. Madsen plays a role that seems to peak at his real life antics sometimes. The direction is good considering the budget and limitations of being an indy. There were several times in the film where I forgot I was watching a LOW DOLLAR indy and it felt more like any other studio flick. I read an article that said the film was shot in something like 20 days so for that I am impressed. It is not the best movie this year but if you like old noir films and have a thing for Shannyn Sossamon, it is definitely something to catch. The last 20 minutes are GREAT if you have been attentive enough to follow the story up to that point.Better than most....Not as good as some.