A Murder of Crows (1998)

“There’s an old saying: Money talks. The only thing I ever heard it say was “Goodbye”.” – Lawson Russell

Number of Times Seen – Twice (27 Jan 2005 and 15 Jun 2020)

Brief Synopsis – A former lawyer receives a draft of a book written by an old man and when that man unexpectedly dies, he publishes the novel in his own name which causes a lot of more problems.

My Take on it – This is a film that I came across and despite knowing that I had seen it 15 years ago, I couldn’t recall much of it so I decided to give it another try.

The premise presented here is quite good and it works pretty well largely due to the great cast.

Cuba Gooding Jr., Tom Berenger, Eric Stoltz and Marianne Jean-Baptiste are all compelling in their various roles and allow us to get a better understanding of the motives of each of them.

The story has some nice twists along the way that help keep things more interesting while also raising the suspense level of it all.

Liked the way that the story sometimes veers into unexpected territory which helps make it even more enjoyable.

The film utilizes its narration really well in helping establish the tone and setting of the story and the way that this in turn invokes a noir kind of feeling works really well.

Bottom Line – Interesting premise that works because of the great cast. Gooding, Berenger, Stoltz and Jean-Baptiste are all great in these roles and let us get a better understanding of everything going on. The twists in the film are also quiet good and help raise the level of suspense because it goes in directions that one might not always expect. The film uses narration to move things forward and that helps give things a very noir feel to it which also enhances things a bit. Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – When Dubose receives the book in the mail and flips the cover open to see the autograph from Lawson you can see that all the words from the book cover on the inside of the book are complete gibberish. None of them make sense in any recognizable language. (From IMDB)

Rating – Globe Worthy (7/10)