The movie give a pretty good idea of what Cambodia is like back in the late 90's.
If you want action this isn't the movie for you but I enjoyed it enough to watch it several times and to also go and buy a copy.A road to nowhere Moody, atmospheric, but ultimately a very empty movie. Dillon stumbles over himself in his directorial debut. There are some fine moments, and the movie develops a good pace, but Dillon didn't seem to have any idea where to take this movie. The viewer is left to stumble along with him in his attempt to navigate the troubled waters of Cambodia.
What I liked most about the movie was the mood it created, a nihilistic view of Cambodia in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Although essentially a contemporary tale, the action could have occurred anytime in the last 25 years. The streets, cities, hotels all have a run-down look. The characters move around in it as the would an Antonioni movie, but Dillon isn't quite up to the challenge despite assembling a fine cast. In the end, you don't feel rewarded for your effort, as the themes break down in a very weak climax.
"City of Ghosts" opens with an insurance scam. A hurricane belts the East Coast, and thousands of policyholders are left stranded by a phony company that sucked up their premiums and then laundered the money. At first it seems Jimmy (Dillon) was a fall guy hired by a shadow CEO: He presents a viable cover story to the FBI, which the feds buy.
A day later he's headed to Southeast Asia to locate Marvin (James Caan), the CEO, who's working a new deal to build a casino in Cambodia, recently liberated after the reign of Pol Pot. Marvin's new partner, Casper (Stellan Skarsgard, Hollywood's resident shady fellow) is working his own angle with a few of Marvin's former marks.
Although the table is set for a quick-n-dirty foreign thriller of double crosses and exoticism, Dillon spins the material against its natural bent and toward film noir. Upon Jimmy's arrival in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, Dillon is intent on getting us comfortable with the surroundings; some of it works - the brothel scene is oddly alluring - and some of it reeks of prestige padding. Gerard Depardieu has a large role as a crooked motel owner that's colorful but unrelated to the central story. Natascha McElhone is Jimmy's half-hearted love interest, an art scholar of Cambodia's ancient ruins. There is a local bike porter (Kem Sereyvuth), two petty thieves, an Oddjob hitman, three Russians, a monkey, two more art hippies and a retired general from the Pol Pot regime playing both sides of the casino development scheme.
Caan, second billing behind Dillon, has a rather small role as the goofily detached Marvin, who seems less a criminal mastermind than a creep out the wild, playing head games. A sudden event midway through "City of Ghosts" accounts for the character's relative absence from the picture, but Dillon never finds the approach to paint Marvin as the Kurtz-like figure he'd so much like him to be; introducing Caan to the picture in long shot, dancing with girls, isn't exactly effective for Marvin's mystery.
Yet there is enough to recommend. I like Skarsgard's performance - what suspense there is, he creates by just seeming worried - and Dillon, as usual, fits believably inside his character, in this case the tough-but-not-so-wiseguy. There is an authentic brutality to the picture - kidnappings, innocent victims, offhand violence - that Dillon has visited throughout his career as an actor. The crackerjack plot lacks a little snap, but an ominous languor fills the void. Lush, but mindful of the singe of murder still in the air. Cambodia has earned its rough beauty.
