I've never been a huge fan of courtroom dramas. But the allure of Anthony Hopkins playing a deranged killer again and some hyped up new kid on the block named Ryan Gosling playing... well, a hyped up new kid on the block was too much for me. The film is slick and well presented visually, but ultimately, this is one to be forgotten by the year's end. The characters are not well written. They do their thing and then you just have to assume that Hopkins and Gosling are embodying that cliche stereotype role of the typical murder mystery. The plot is not typical. But it is boring. The whole thing revolves around finding a gun and there are more scenes than I wanted to count where they look for the gun in some sort of attempt at character buildup.

However weak the characters may be, Gosling and Hopkins are great to watch. Both amazing talents that are lost on a pretty poor story. The worst part, without a doubt, is the score. It changes tempo, pace, pitch and mood on the drop of a dime into some terrible assembly that doesn't coincide well at all with the track that was playing before it. The romantic interest that is inherent to all Hollywood plot lines is just as artfully contrived. Gosling goes for his superior at the law branch... it is thrown in with the same sort of taste that the big twist at the end is. Both, the viewer just kind of watches happen without any real satisfaction.

Then the film ends and I realize why I never liked courtroom dramas.