Blood Ties is not for everyone
I'll give it to you straight - Blood Ties is not for everyone.
I would normally have waited for a DVD release of this and then watched it at home in my own time. I normally reserve big-screen blockbusters for cinema viewing and character dramas or rom-coms for at home DVD viewing.
This movie is only for you if you have watched every 70s cop drama there is AND if you love the genre so much that you wish there was one you had missed just so you could watch it all over again...
That's what Blood Ties is. It would sit comfortably on the shelves alongside VCR copies of The French Connection and Mean Streets. In a way it's a 70s period piece. It is true to the period right from the costumes, locations and themes to the script, cinematography and even the colour grading.
I got the distinct feeling that it's a salute to the films of that period and how they were made. I would not be surprised if they even shot the whole film on analogue.
It has a noir feel to it too which is inevitable as Blood Ties is a remake of the 2008 French thriller Les liens du sang by Jacques Maillot, an adaptation of the French novel Deux frères: flic & truand by Bruno and Michel Papet.
That said, I loved it! This movie is right up my ally. I still don't know who the bigger stars were; the cast or the cars!
Cast:
Clive Owen
Billy Crudup
Marion Cotillard
Mila Kunis
James Caan
Zoe Saldana.
Cars:
67 Buick Skylark
69 Buick Wildcat
63 Chevy convair Monza
64 Chrysler New Yorker
71 Dodge Coronet Police cruiser
61 Ford Thunderbird!
71 Ford Torino!
73 Cadillac Coupe DeVille!
Seriously, during the obligatory car chase scene I was torn between rooting for the protagonist or the car!
Take a look at the trailer below: