A few reviews - Books and Movie

Read "The Lost Symbol", "The Art of the Heist" and "The English Assassin" plus watched the movie "Boondock Saints" all in the last couple weeks.  A few quick thoughts:

Since there's only one movie let's do "Boondock Saints" first.  My daughter is a big fan of this movie and has been urging me to watch it.  Turns out Dad's not as big a fan.  Let's see shall we call the movie "stylish"?  No, more like "stylized".  The movie follows two Irish brothers from Boston who decide that they are called by God to rid the city of its worst citizens.  And they're very specific about only offing the baddest of the bad.  There's actually an interesting idea in there about vigilantism and taking a stand against evil in the world.  It's "Death Wish" meets "The Blues Brothers" Sadly this movie is mostly about F bombs (this may be my personal champion for dropping the bomb.  It's certainly right up there) and the stylized violence that the brothers unleash.  At the same time the movie has a wicked sense of humor and two pretty gritty performances by the leads (Sean Patrick Flannery and Norman Reedus) plus a bizarre and well, bizarre performance by Willem DeFoe all of which gets wasted.  There's really no story here, you don't get to investigate the characters and the dialog is uneven. The brothers idea of theology is twisted and the call to vigilante justice, while having a long history in our nation, remains an exceptionally bad idea.  Sorry kiddo, not a great movie.

On the book front -

The English Assassin by Daniel Silva - The second in the Gabrial Allon series (I reviewed "The Confessor" previously) I enjoyed this.  It's more of the action adventure stuff following the Israeli assassin/art restorer.  This time he's suspected of murder (several actually, including at least one he did), fighting the Swiss banks and the memory of World War II and the Nazi looting of wealth and art from many people including many wealthy Jews.  Silva's is a good read and a fun story teller.  His books perk right along with the action and just enough interesting art and history to pull it all together.  I know there's about ten more books in this series so I'll probably be working my way through them slowly.

The Art of the Heist: Confessions of a Master Art Thief, Rock and Roller and Prodigal Son by Miles J Connor Jr and Jenny Siler.  Here's the story of a career art thief from New England who was very, very good at what he did.  From small country art museums up to the biggest (does he actually reveal a clue about the Gardner robbery?  The Gardner is one of the biggest unsolved robberies of all time) Miles Connor has taken a run at them.  By his own account he amassed a very large and valuable personal collection of art and swords.  The one thing you WON'T find in this is any sense of remorse.  This is what he did.  He's sorry he hurt a couple people (emotionally, Connor used as little violence as possible) but that's about it.  It's a very matter of fact, walk on the beach kind of account.  He's obviously very bright and a wonderful story teller.  It was an interesting read.

And last but not least "The Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown - The latest Robert Langdon novel takes on the arcana of the Masons.  If you're a Mason you should love this book.  It all but falls over itself in its fawning admiration for the group (which has gotten an bad rep that it doesn't deserve).  Brown knows how to tell a story and it rips right along.  It sucked me in and I devoured the book in just a couple days.  Great fun just like the two previous.  On the other hand Brown's writing can leave a lot to be desired.  It can be awkward, his imagery can be awful, he apparently managed to completely reorganize Washington D.C. and his history is, well, creative.  I actually had much bigger problems with some of the characters and plot devices in this one than the previous two.  And his spiritual/theological bits are astoundingly simplistic and stitched together.  As with any of his books you can get caught up in picking on the bits he gets wrong or just accept that as the price of admission and enjoy the ride.  I just wish that after as many novels as he's sold he took a little more care with his craft.