Forest Whitaker is outstanding as "Ghost Dog". You have to get past the initial "What? A chubby samurai?" questions and just get on with enjoying his performance. I feel certain that the director Jim Jarmusch had ambitions for this film that were left unfulfilled due to budget constraints. His filmmaking is imaginative, but some segments drag terribly. Most notable among these: Ghost Dog steals approximately 5 automobiles during the movie, and each time we are subjected to his boring ritual of putting a CD in the stereo (Whitaker is awesome, but I'll never buy him as a hip-hop aficionado), and then driving silently for 5 minutes. These intervals become maddening for the viewer. Still, this is a thought-provoking update of classic samurai films.
Written 7/16/08
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