Rian Johnson is a superb filmmaker. That may seem like hyperbole for a man with just three feature films under his belt, but I don’t think it can be denied. Three films, three familiar stories. Noir-infused murder mystery, sharp-tongued con men, time travel. “Stop me if you’ve heard this one before”, right? Wrong. In each of his films, Rian Johnson flips convention on its head through his, to be frank, stunning writing.

It’s the way he expertly structures his films.…

"If you ride like lightning, you're gonna crash like thunder."

It's an overstatement to say this film crashes in its third act, but I'm just not above using that quote for this movie. While the third act is problematic on its own, it doesn't retroactively ruin what precedes it, it's just that when you start your film with the ferociousness of Ryan Gosling's Handsome Luke, the rest of the film has a lot to live up to.

James Franco, who…