City of Ghosts is an action film by Matt Dillon and Barry Gifford. It's about a con man named Jimmy that escapes from the investigators that are closing in on him and his partners for an insurance scam that screwed over a LOT of people. He runs to Cambodia, where he thinks his partner is to tell him the plan's gone belly-up and find out what he's been up to for the time he's been incognito. The movie is full of plot twists and action, gunshots and testosterone as far as the eye can see.
Actors included some famous faces such as Matt Dillon himself, Gerard Derpardieu, Stellan Skarsgård, and James Caan. The rest of the actors howerver were mostly Cambodian natives. The actor that played Sok, Kem Sereyvuth was a taxi driver that they met and cast as the cyclo driver that would help Jimmy out along his adventure. With no previous experience in acting, Kem did an amazing job.
The movie itself wasn't bad. It wasn't something I would go to see personally but I enjoyed it. The Kingdom of Cambodia was a beautiful place, but was shown as it isn't seen in brochures and vacation catalogs. It was shown as a gritty underbelly of scociety where poverty and crime ran amok. There were few good people like the barkeep at the Bellview and Sok. The there weren't many special effects other than mines blowing up.
The lighting and coloring of the movie was spot on. Slight yellow filters gave it the dirty and gritty feeling that the movie portrayed. The camera angles used gave it the fast paced feeling with a lot of freehand shooting and close ups to show emotion on the actors faces. The music of the movie contained mostly asian music, thai, and some instrumentals for chase scenes.
In my personal opinion, the movie was a little overdone. The plot line has been done before over and over but Matt Dillon did a great job trying to make it interesting and knew. I will probably never see this movie again but I would recommend it to anyone who loves action films and foreign locations.
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