Reel Insight Episode 15 - Edward Norton

Episode 15 is ready!  Edward Norton has done some of my favorite movies, and I actually own several of them.  However, his stinkers are unbelievably bad.  Enjoy our discussion.

Down in the Valley - Well, Edward Norton has proven that he can play CRAZY.  Down in the Valley is his turn as a really strange guy who thinks he's a cowboy in modern day LA.  He meets Evan Rachel Wood while pumping her gas, and she invites him to the beach for the day.  He goes - strange mid-western/southern accent (from "south dakota) and cowboy hat intact.  They fall for each other (though he's obviously 20 years older) and start sleeping together and dating.  He lives alone in an apartment and plays pretend cowboy games with his guns in the apartment.  He doesn't have a car so for a date he pretends to "borrow" a horse from a friend.  He's delusional, but his story holds up pretty well for an 18-year old girl.  Her little brother, one of the Cuilkin boys, also falls for his shtick.   However, her "father" (not sure if he's her foster father or biological father), who is a sheriff, knows Ed's up to no good.  They eventually figure out Ed's full of crap, but he still thinks Wood is in love with him, but he accidentally shoots her when he's trying to get her to leave with him.  He kidnaps the brother and whole thing ends in a shootout with the dad (exactly like what Norton practiced in his apartment).  It's a really strange movie without any good scenes or dialogue, and the nearly 20-year age gap between the leads was just creepy, but wasn't  mentioned at all.  Yes, Norton is charming enough to believe she'd fall for him in the first place, and creepy enough that others might not trust him, but it's not enough to save a disastrous movie.

Pride and Glory - Not good.  Norton plays the son of a multi-generational NYPD family.  Jon Voight, his father, assigns him to investigate the murder of 4 cops from his brother's (Colin Farrell) squad.  Farrell is the dirty cop who turns out to have gotten his guys killed.  Really gratuitous violence, and Norton has a few moments of goodness, but more terrible.