New Year's Leave
It's New Years Eve in New York and Claire Morgan (Hilary Swank) is in charge of the ball drop. The ball drop is important to Stan Harris (Robert De Niro) who is dying in a hospital bed and his last wish is to watch the ball drop for real rather than on TV. Others have similar wishes as the hours tick down to New Years Eve from two people in an elevator to a rock star and a former girlfriend.
Quite simply the only praise I can give "New Year's Eve" is that somehow the casting team managed to convince one star name after another to appear; from legends like De Niro to new actresses like Lea Michele this is a movie which has more star power than you would find in one of those documentaries about old Hollywood. But that is it and the bad news is that I can't remember the last time I watched so many stars and was so bored for so long.
So what went wrong with "New Year's Eve", I imagine a question many hung-over revellers ask as they break their first resolution, well maybe it is too many stars. With so many recognizable names and faces they don't get enough screen time. I don't mean because their ego's demand but it means there is next to no character development as no one has time to establish any. The knock on effect of that is that some of the star turns are utterly uninspired and you start to question why the director went with so many actors when they don't get chance to really act. And with no real character development each of their stories end up uninteresting. It is clearly a case that bigger is not better.
What this all boils down to is that "New Year's Eve" really didn't work for me and found it a boring disappointment which the only reason I might watch again is when I am looking for something to put me to sleep.
