Leaves of Grass (Blake Nelson, 2009)

[kaytee]

Edward Norton in a double role should be reason enough to watch this. Tim Blake Nelson who directed the very decent O previously is back on the chair.

The lives of two identical twins (Ed Norton), one an Ivy League philosophy professor, the other a small-time and brilliant marijuana grower, intertwine when the professor is lured back to his Oklahoma hometown for a doomed scheme against a local drug lord (Richard Dreyfuss).

[madali]

Bollywood used to have such a hard-on for having actors play double roles in the 90s

[madali]

Leaves of Grass (Tim Blake Nelson, 2009)

" We are animals, Professor Kincaid... with brains that trick us into thinking we aren't."

Double the trouble, double the fun! Is this the 90s? A movie with an actor playing dual roles? Edward Norton as Twin #1, Bill Kincaid, and Edward Norton as Twin #2, Brady Kincaid. Playing characters that are different from each other, Bill, the clean-cut, good-boy, philosophy university professor, and Brady, the unshaven, bad-boy, drug-dealer. Edward Norton in a movie is usually excellent so two Edwards Nortons should be excellence X 2.

But mathematical formulas fail when it applies to movies. While Edward Norton plays both characters so well that you keep forgetting they are the same actors, the movie itself breaks apart in the final act so much, that even TWO Edward Nortons can't save it.

Bill is lured back by Brady and then manipulated into having him act as an alibi. And then things go wrong, as Perfect Plans in films always do. As the plan goes wrong, so does the film's quality.

2/5

[madali]

As a bonus, look at this shitty poster