Starts promisingly, and indeed the first two thirds of the movie offer some nuanced acting and intelligent scripting that takes you back to the best of Sorkin and The West Wing. Then the writers seem to lose their nerve: "wait, nuance for a US audience? What were we thinking?!"
As a result the final act, after a ridiculous scene where both Clooney and Gosling struggle to project the kind of understated menace that's second nature to any half-decent British actor, is laboured, banal and predictable. Several times you find yourself asking "okay, I get it, is it over now?" only to find the writers and director have decided to reiterate their tired homily - which pretty much distills down to "nobody's perfect" - yet again.
If only they'd stopped while they were ahead. Or kept going the same way. Nonetheless there's more good than bad in this... in fact ironically it's the strength of the first two acts which makes the weak Hollywood style morality tale ending so glaringly obvious. The Curate's egg, in other words...
