Marion Cotillard

Guillaume Canet's drama, featuring Clive Owen, Mila Kunis, Marion Cotillard and Billy Crudup, revolves around a family divided by one brother being a cop, the other a criminal. read more

If there is any movie this year at Cannes that is absolutely brimming with promise on paper, it's Guillaume Canet's "Blood Ties." With an extended cast featuring Clive Owen, Billy Crudup, Mila Kunis, Matthias Schoenaerts, Zoe Saldana, James Caan, Marion Cotillard, Noah Emmerich and Lili Taylor among others along with a script co-written by James Gray, one wonders how it could go wrong. And while "Blood Ties" isn't a disaster, it's certainly a mess, a sprawling crime saga that endeavours to evoke the great character driven movies of the 1970s, but never quite lives up to its epic scope. Playing out over two-and-a-half very long hours, there is enough plots, subplots and side-stories in the film to fill an entire season of a TV series. But here are the basics: Chris (Owen) is just out of the joint, trying to go straight and essentially do right by his cop brother Frank (Crudup), but he's got a messy past to deal with including making amends with Monica (Cotillard) a...