Blood & Wine

Blood & Wine is a fairly unknown movie starring Jack Nicholson, Michael Caine, Jennifer Lopez and Stephen Dorff about a jewel heist gone wrong.

The reason I was curious about this movie was the cast, and the cast alone. I mean, Nicholson and Caine together was enough reason for me. The movie had been sitting in my Netflix que for quite a while, and as it neared the top of the list I started to have some doubts. I had looked up reviews for it and they ranged from intriguing at best and disappointing at worst. Still, my curiosity of Caine and Nicholson together got the best of me so I finally gave it a shot this morning, and man, what a waste of time.

It's almost impossible to say that Nicholson and Caine are never not good, but here they actually seem a little miscast, and only really showing interest when their two characters butt heads. Aside from the fact that Nicholson worked with the films director numerous times before, most notably on Five Easy Pieces, I can't really understand why he chose to do this movie except that maybe he owed the director a favor. As for Caine, well, he proved in the 90s and 00s that he'll do pretty much anything for a buck.

I think what bothers me most about this movie is that its just there. It's not exactly awful and its nowhere near good, but with this cast and this genre it could have at least been a solid little flick. The main problem seems to be the direction by Bob Rafelson, who doesn't really know how to set a tone for the movie, instead just having the actors read their lines and move on to the next shot. The script isn't amazing either, but I feel like any other director could have at least given Nicholson and Caine some direction in hopes that they could add some much needed spark to the proceedings.

It's pretty hard for me to really dislike a movie, much less hate one, but Blood & Wine is a flick I kinda wish I hadn't even watched. I honestly feel as though I wasted my time, something which I don't usually find valuable in any way.