Edward Norton vs. Edward Norton?

Leaves of Grass - Tim Blake Nelson

Every so often a really weird film comes out of nowhere and surprises you. Especially the people in it or the plot which somehow seems to be made from the mind of a mad man about to go on a killing spree. You know the films I’m talking about, the ones ruled by urban myth of how bad they are or for one particular scene where a tongue is cut off or a sex scene occurs that involve real sex. And for this month’s weird fucking film award goes to Leaves of Grass. Even the name is going to suggest some sort of drug use or drug connected, and it is. It revolves around the growing of drugs and how science can used for good to create a sustainable and varied choose of drugs. Wait did i say it was a good thing; i meant a horrible bad one. Now I’m not a believer of drugs but at the same time i don’t openly hate upon it, I’m that kind of person, everyone has their own choice and I’m not going to threaten people to do what i want. So I’m open to the idea of people doing it sensibly and it’s up to them. So going into the film, i was hoping the humour would overrun the fact it’s a stoner comedy with a lot less stoner, not like Pineapple Express or a Cheech and Chong movie. So once i knew it was Edward Norton as the main lead, i was a little surprised, seeing him as a professional actor who may not have the same roots in comedy been in this type of movie, i was defiantly surprised. And unfortunately after seeing the film, it doesn’t change my view greatly, it just cements the fact that it doesn’t work.

Ed Norton plays two characters, two twins, one being an ivory league philosophy professor and the other a weed grower from the Deep South with one of the worst accents of all time. Through in this whole storylines of the weed grower brother tricking his smarter brother to come back to their home town to help him with a local druglord who wants the hillbilly killed and that’s pretty much it. Of course a love story in thrown in too with the smarter brother, as every film has to have it and also the realisation of the smarter one that maybe his brother isn’t half as stupid as he thinks. It has the normal clichés of a stoner comedy but just without the comedy and random violence mixed with it. I don’t find it funny or entertaining, if anything just really boring and predictable. I expected more from Ed Norton considering his past and the knowing fact that he is one of the best actors alive. Poor show. I don’t recommend it at all.

2/10

Simon Childs