An excellent documentary of one of America's most notorious criminals.
What could have been the beginning of an excellent film series falls flat with a shoddy story structure.
I generally find cutesy titles distasteful, but I'll let it slide here, because the film itself is actually quite good. Shattered Glass is based on the true story of Stephen Glass (Hayden Christensen), a young, hot-shot writer for The New Republic in Washington D.C. He rose to fame quickly over his three years with the publication by partially or completely concocting his stories. Everything goes relatively without a hitch, until another publication starts researching one of Glass' stories. The film covers Glass' desperate attempts to keep from being found out.
There's a lot to like here. The writing is rock solid. Billy Ray - who also directed the feature - does an elegant job of misleading the audience and keeping them on the fence as to whether or not Glass actually did fabricate his stories (that is, if you aren't already familiar with the real story). Only once does Ray play dirty, using an "it was all a dream" convention, but, given the character of Glass, it works out. Also, a sufficient amount of the film is dedicated to the journalism process, giving the movie a believable authority and adding quite a bit of depth to the plot as a whole. As a writer, it was also nice to see the bits where writers fought for bylines or asked for criticisms. All in all, the script is highly nuanced.
This film is strictly for the fans. Luckily, it’s easy to become one by watching the entire series.
Sometimes shocking, but consistently funny is comedy the Irish way!
A strangely action-oriented sequel that will still be a hit with the kids.
A bit more than meets the eye, with an underlying theme that can be applied to many areas of transition for all of us.