Instruct: Classify Amazon reviews into positive or negative sentiment
Query: a confusing mess

It looks like this movie is a pretentious attempt to seriously recreate a film noir genre, but it takes itself so seriously it fails miserably. As others have noted, the acting is quite bad, the script incredibly confusing, the direction misguided, and in the end when (FINALLY) the myriad plot threads attempt to come together, there are so many impossible coincidences linking the characters, you wonder that the writers had the nerve to suggest them. Amazingly, as bad as the usually brilliant Hilary Swank is here, the worst performance award must go to Fiona Shaw, an classically trained actress with an incredible pedigree. Is it possible this was supposed to be a comedy, and we all just missed it? Because I was actually embarrassed for these actors. Still, the film looks great, and the boxing match in the beginning was quite good. My advice? Once the bell rings and the match is over, switch to another movie. It's a downhill slide from there.