2009 Thriller Comedy - What we have here is your basic interweaving characters type of flick, the horror of it all. In this case the math is 3. 3 Characters that each share about a third of the flick. A first time director tackles a combo of thriller and the absurd and for the most part he delivers. However there are slow patchs and the whole interweaving character thing has been so beat to death that it needs something very unique and this one just falls short there. .Using my Pinewoods Rating System, I give Staten Island an adequate Two & A Half Pinewoods....The Horror!!
Gazing Longingly at Manhattan
The writer-director James DeMonaco is a native Staten Islander, and if his film "Staten Island, New York" is an ode to what it calls "the forgotten stepchild of Manhattan," it is a barbed and quirky one. Using a nonlinear, Tarantino-esque narrative, Mr. DeMonaco adroitly weaves violence, absurdity and sentiment, even an environmental consciousness, into a modest, appealing fable.
Review: ‘Staten Island’
Auds may feel a sense of deja vu while watching the blackly comic crime thriller "Staten Island," which, given its tripartite structure and Ethan Hawke's role as a screw-up, could have been titled "Before the Devil Knows You've Changed Boroughs." Still, there's enough originality and verve in writer-helmer James DeMonaco's debut to make for compelling viewing.
THE SHEER HORROR!!
