This is a magnificent movie, and leaving HBO in a couple of days.
I never knew that Terry Gilliam directed this, and so it is something special. Gilliam has it working on multiple levels, and yet manages great story-book payoffs as the Western viewers expect.
It’s a such a smart, raw film, with real violence and its consequences, real poverty, power disparity, torture, belligerence, arrogance. The acting is phenomenal–Heath Ledger & Matt Damon as battling brothers, the most famous brothers of their age, and begins in the world of the rational. They are con men, charlatans, swindlers.
But magic is real. And it’s enough to carry you away to a most deadly forest.
I love how Terry Gilliam is someone you can trust to deliver some intelligence and a moral compass. Stark contrast to a similar-appearing film called Hansel & Gretel.
J. Giambrone 