Fluentiama Perfect cast and a good story

PlatinumRead Just so...so bad

Joanna Mccarty Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

mikedawson-97635 The theme of the film is both state of mind of the detective who is trying to solve two murder cases simultaneously and the cases themselves. If you like movies that question the way we perceive things and how they change due to our level of consciousness then this film is worth watching.

chris Atmospheric is probably the best summation of this movie. There is a recognizable sense of southern atmosphere - dark and brooding, that permeates constantly throughout the story. This is also the best thing about the movie. The story line itself comes across as disconnected and disjointed. Whether this is intended or not; it doesn't work. I always felt like it was missing something. Developments seemed to happen without explanation. It almost feels watching it now that it was approaching something as weighty and hard hitting as the dark quality of True Detective's first season in moments - but it just never got there. I enjoyed Tommy Lee Jones but thought that his character should have been consistently harder and darker. John Goodman was shaping up to be quite enjoyable as a mob boss but he never got enough quality screen time or character development. Both their performances deserved better. I did enjoy the movie as a whole - I just felt a little disappointed afterwards because I feel that it could have been something great but too many moments of inconsequential sub plots cluttered and devalued it's brooding atmosphere. Also the music score was really ill fitting and I rarely ever comment on that.

brchthethird IN THE ELECTRIC MIST is a near-perfect neo-noir anchored by a solid, yet restrained, performance by Tommy Lee Jones. Ever since I heard about this, I wanted to see it and boy was I surprised. It exceeded my expectations greatly. The story, put simply, is about a New Orleans detective Dave Robicheaux (Jones) who is investigating the murder of a prostitute and also looking into the 40-year-old murder of a black man who was recently found in a swamp. Along the way he ends up getting into situations that drag him further into Louisana's deep dark secrets and past, uncovers some things that other people would rather forget and has some surreal encounters with a Confederate general. That last bit really caught me off-guard, and also calls into the question the mental state of Robicheaux, who also serves as the film's narrator. I really liked the way that the filmmakers play around with the concept of reality in this movie, because it adds some depth to a fairly standard story and it also works in the thematic context of the story itself. There were also some great supporting performances given by John Goodman, as a crime boss who is also investing in a movie being shot there, Peter Sarsgaard as actor in that movie, as well as Mary Steenburgen (Robicheaux's wife), Kelly MacDonald, Buddy Guy and Levon Helm. Each of these actors has moments in the film where they can show off their acting ability, and not a moment is wasted with them. Also of note is the stunning soundtrack, which is full of great blues tunes and native Cajun folk songs which really bring out and accentuate the Louisiana culture on display. The score also helps to establish and maintain the palpable dramatic tension as well as give some shades of melancholy which are also personified in Jones' weathered detective character. If there was one fault I could find with the movie, it's a third act twist which is a bit predictable and cliché, but fortunately it's resolved rather quickly. Overall, the real draw is the strong central performance by Tommy Lee Jones who does a great job of portraying a seasoned, hard-boiled detective with some flaws, but a good sense of right and wrong. I also especially liked the idea of transplanting the hard-boiled detective story into post-Katrina New Orleans. Highly recommended viewing.

dromasca Some films deserve a better fate. This is in my opinion the case with 'In the Electric Mist' which is totally unknown to most of the cinema fans because it seems to not having been released in cinema theaters in the US. This is a very hard to understand decision, as this is a much better than the average detective movies, better than many other similar films released around that date, it's well acted, beautifully filmed, directed by a well-known French director (Bertrand Tavernier) and with supreme star Tommy Lee Jones as lead actor. What do I know about the art of film distribution, though? Probably not too much.The story is set in the swamps of Louisiana and features detective David Robicheaux which some may remember as having been played by Alec Baldwin in Heaven's Prisoner more than a decade before this film was made (the character is inspired by the same series of novels). The atmosphere of the Cajun country with its fogs and smells, legends and collection of unique characters makes for a good background for mysteries and hidden secrets and Tavernier makes a good use of it in a way that predicts Beasts of the Southern Wild. Nobody is surprised when generals and soldiers from the Civil War fought more than a century before show up from behind the fogs, and the phantoms of the older conflicts of race and class mix with the personal daemons the heroes have to face.Watching Tommy Lee Jones playing the justice-driven detective (although his means are not always really orthodox) is always a pleasure, and to a large extent the film relies on him. He is helped by an excellent supporting cast, with John Goodman featuring as one of the lead bad guys, and Mary Steenburgen as the classy wife of Robicheaux. While the script does not really close perfectly every corner of the story, there is cursive story telling in the style of the big detective American novels of the 40s, and the heroes have the same naive faith that the good cause of justice is worth risking everything to have it prevail. Bertrand Tavernier has filmed with European lens a very American story in a very American landscape, and despite the relative low-key ending (maybe the weak part of the movie) it's a good film to look for and watch.