At first, I was very impressed with the way the plot in this movie progressed, and how the story was presented. The movie plays out like a slice out of real life, and presents the characters and the story in a more involved and human way than I have seen in any other movie, but in the end everything is destroyed by one gunshot.<br /><br />This movie has been criticized by other commentators for being unengaging, for having no clear resolve, for being self indulgent, for having too many meandering scenes, irrelevant to the story, but frankly those are all a matter of aesthetic and are totally unimportant as to the quality of the film, for clearly, I as well as a lot of other people, greatly enjoyed the aesthetic elements of the film. Where everything falls apart is after Cosmo commences his attempt to murder "the Chinese bookie"<br /><br />Cosmo manages to get through some guard dogs and enter the property by simply feeding them some meat, where if they would have barked it would have alerted the many armed guards on the premises. I've never known a guard dog not to bark at people who approach their property, but this point in itself is forgivable. Indeed the odds of him breaking into the residence, killing the Chinese bookie, and escaping were about 50 to 1. I won't spoil the plot by saying if he kills him or not (at any rate, it's irrelevant to the rest of the movie), but he does manage to escape, only with a gunshot wound to his stomach. The fact that it was unlikely for him to complete the task is an interesting notion which later dawns on the viewer, as the very people who enlisted him to do it, thought it could never have been done.<br /><br />This is what makes the plot itself a little convoluted and nonsensical. If they really wanted the Chinese bookie dead, why would they not enlist a professional rather than a high profile club owner who had no idea what he was doing, and why send him on a job they thought he couldn't complete, and with so much security in his way. Cosmo IS a moron, since he goes along with it not questioning this and incurred the massive debt to begin with. The only logical explanation is they didn't mind if the bookie was dead, and hoped Cosmo would get killed in the process. THIS makes no sense since Cosmo had very good credit, a successful business, and would have likely been able to pay the debt off + interest. Nevertheless after he returns to his club, they lure him away, and attempt to kill him regardless, at which point the hard ass muscle man decides to opt out, saying he wont do it because Cosmo is his friend, and hes the only one who listens to him, which is another ridiculous spiral to be led down, since the 2 have absolutely no meaningful conversation prior. Again he escapes and returns to the club.<br /><br />The above, does strongly compromise the whole movie, but what ultimately destroys it, is the gunshot wound. It's funny how in 2 different movies, the same exact thing is displayed completely differently. In "Reservoir Dogs", a character is shot in the stomach, he bleed so profusely that his entire shirt and the back seat of a car is completely drenched in blood, and a character states that the stomach is one of the most painful areas to be shot, whereas in THIS film, we don't see a single speck of blood on Cosmo aside from a very tiny spot of blood on his green shirt, when returns home and lies on a bed, except for the very last scene of the film, where it looks like red paint was spilled on his jacket, which begs the question, why didn't any character notice beforehand, including the viewers?? Let me say that Ben gazarra is a great actor, and a lot of the scenes appear to be improvised, but all throughout the second half, Cosmo appears to be in no pain whatsoever, running swiftly, smiling, and talking calmly without a single sign of pain. In the end which of the 2 movies do we believe? Indeed the stomach IS one of the most painful areas to get shot in as it contains a vast concentration of sensitive nerves, and it doesn't matter how hardened you are, you cannot be as laid back and oblivious to it, smiling and being reflective as Cosmo was, which is a complete misuse of Ben Gazarra as an actor. In terms of blood I know first hand that he would have been completely DRENCHED in blood, even if they did stop the bleeding, which they didn't, and which is hard to do with a gunshot wound to the stomach, without operating. My dad was shot in the army, and just a shot in the leg will cause you to lose litres of blood if you don't stop it, and moreover if he did not receive the blood transfusion he would have bled to death within 15 minutes.<br /><br />My ultimate question is, lack of resolve, and far fetched plot aside, if the director was simply going to have his main character go throughout the 2nd half of the entire film with a severe gun shot wound, as if there was no gunshot wound at all, then what was he trying to prove by it? All it really achieved was to destroy the plausibility of every single scene after the gun shot wound, so due to the fact that everything in the entire second half of this movie never could have happened, It is impossible to give it more than 2 stars, an extra star for Ben Gazarras performance.