michael10sley I find it _extremely difficult to watch a movie or TV program filmed in false color.The 'sepia' tint of 'journey to the end of the night' _immediately convinced me I wasn't interested in the plot. When I walk out into my backyard every morning I see 'roy g. biv' colors provided by the Sun and expect to see those same natural colors in everything I view.I think its a toss-up between CSI and the 'Matrix' movies for the advent of 'green' tinted filming which apparently provided the 'idea' for the red-shifted 'sepia' distraction in 'journey'.It doesn't matter which filters directors and film editors use, its _still not real.Raise your hand if you wondered why CSI's in Las Vegas walked out of _broad daylight into a house (crime scene) and _immediately turned on their _ever available hand-held flashlights rather than turn on the lights in a room ,or even _better, raise the shades.Trying to set 'mood' with false color and 'shading' should have criminal charges attached.

gradyharp A Director Searching for his Signature, March 3, 2007 Reviewer: Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviewsFor those of us who found much to admire and appreciate in Eric Eason's 2002 little powerhouse of a film MANITO that placed Franky G in the limelight as a sound actor inside that hunky exterior, the release of JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE NIGHT held much promise. Unfortunately with moving into the arena of 'major features' with popular big actors in a script that is deeply in need of surgery proves a step too quickly taken. While it is easy to see Eason's intentions in this very dark (literally!) film, it is compulsively doctored with phony 'reality ideas' that misfire.The basic story is a family of Americans who are deeply involved in the crime scene (brothels) of São Paulo, Brazil, intricately bound in their crime acts but both planning to escape the quagmire of the dingy life of the city and return to America. The father Sinatra (Scott Glenn) is living with Angie (Catalina Sandino Moreno - the star of 'Maria Full of Grace') and they have a small child: Sinatra's son Paul (Brendan Fraser) is also in love with Angie and plans an escape from the dregs of Sao Paulo after he manages to work a drug pass engineered by his father. The sale is to Nigerians who speak Yoruba and when the 'messenger' meant to pass the drugs for the money abruptly dies in a brothel with a transgender prostitute, the panic begins: who can make the pass that night? Sinatra hires a Nigerian, Yoruba speaking dishwasher Wemba (Mos Def) who agrees to take the drugs to the drop site and it seems Wemba is the only decent character to keep his bargain and his word. Paul is enraged with the death of the original middleman and ends up disfiguring the prostitute present at his death. The drug deal falls into problems, Paul is unable to convince Angie to stand by him (which mean leaving Paul's father and the possible endangerment of her son), and things bog down plot-wise so that story ultimately ends with the only persons to care about are Angie and Wemba.Eason makes his story all happen in one night and the constant factor is a greenish darkness that hides almost everything - and that may be a good thing! The script is Swiss cheese, the acting is for the most part sadly directed, the cast is poorly chosen, and the only real redeeming factor is the chance to watch Mos Def continue to flesh out his career with well executed character roles. Eric Eason holds much promise as a director (he was the awarded best emerging filmmaker by first annual Tribeca Film Festival in New York City in 2002), so perhaps this excursion into the 'big screen realm' can be forgiven as overstepping his material. In the end JOURNEY TO THE END OF THE NIGHT is hopefully just a sidestep for a director who obviously has considerable talent. Grady Harp

Butch Corum (butchcorum1950) This is an interesting work in the film noir/gangster genre. The story has to do with the bad blood between father and son, played out over one night in Sao Paulo. The tone and mood of the movie seem to reference many more famous, high profile films that deal with the same topic matter. This one seems very interested in stylization over telling a completely coherent story. And its this stylization that sets it above regular crime dramas. Bredan Fraser plays the loser, coke addicted son without any fear of looking bad. HIs performance is very emotional and wild. Not easy for any actor to pull off. His character is a villain without any morals. Made that way by his father, Scott Glenn, an initially likable, sympathetic sort, who, as the tale unravels, is not so nice a guy after all.By far, the film's hero, Mos Def (the only hero because everyone else is evil or not big enough to really know) gives a winning, career defining performance as a Nigerian immigrant who, out of loyalty to his employer, agrees to partake in a drug deal. The "raptor" gives a nuanced, thoroughly believable performance as wemba in maybe his best role as a film actor.The other big star of the film are the colors. The nighttime images and camera. It appears to be heavily saturated and grainy and apparently enhanced through the DI process. Cinematographer aficionados will surely want to see this for the interesting lighting.If the film has a flaw, I would cite an overall bleak and hateful tone of the script. Very anti- human being. The violence feels almost gratuitous with some shots of face slashing feeling too long or ultimately unnecessary. The squeamish will look away! But nothing very troublesome compared to the gore in the horror genre.Recommended to those who like dark material.

crystallaurence-1 I also watched the film at Tribeca and found it as a whole work to be interesting and entertaining. Sure there were flaws in the film itself but in total I enjoyed the camera work, the colors and the actors. I didn't have a problem with any of the actors on the screen. I thought Brandon Fraser was cast in a role that he normally doesn't play but that didn't take away from the movie if anything it added to it. He definitely had a presence on the screen as did Scott. The characters were also justified in their actions. Don't get me wrong there were flaws in the film I just felt that they were minimal. I went in expecting to watch a film that wasn't going to be very good and I ended up seeing something that I though was entertaining and interesting. The main character was not Brazil, there are movies where the city is the main character and the actors are there to move it along. This was very much character based film.