Yikes, this is a sick movie and one of the wildest I've ever watched.
THE GOOD - This is so stylishly-filmed it's unbelievable. The wild camera techniques - quick flashes, sudden changes from color to black-and-white and back, distorted sound bytes, tilted camera angles, wild colors and symbolic images, distorted sound bytes - are all fascinating to watch. Then there's the crazy story, which ranges from really good to really bad. It's good to see the tabloid media mentality mocked for the trash it is, glorifying evil just to get ratings and the evil killers feeding off that media frenzy. Most of the characters in this film, as bad as they are, are definitely attention-getting. The two leads, "Mickey and Mallory" are two names that now go together, thanks to this film and the ultra-sleazy portrayals of them by Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis.
THE BAD NEWS - Most of the people in this film, if not all, are so vile, so profane, so morally bankrupt, so disgusting you want to take a shower after watching this film. Even the film critics who gravitate toward evil were repulsed by this movie. I actually enjoyed the story up to a point: about the halfway mark. After that, it becomes one gigantic mess, almost too difficult to watch in one sitting. I am mainly referring to all the scenes in the prison including the drawn- out riot/prison break, which goes on way too long. Over 20 usages of the Lord's name in vain - almost all of them in the second half of the movie, didn't help in my rating. Tommy Lee Jones, as the warden, and Robert Downey, as the Aussie scumbag tabloid reporter, absolutely go over-the-top.
OVERALL - In order to stomach this film, you have to look at it as some outrageous satire on violence and the media and take these characters as extreme cartoon-like people and nothing else. Take nothing seriously here. It might help to wear earplugs, too, in profanity and just plan noise bother you.
THE GOOD - This is so stylishly-filmed it's unbelievable. The wild camera techniques - quick flashes, sudden changes from color to black-and-white and back, distorted sound bytes, tilted camera angles, wild colors and symbolic images, distorted sound bytes - are all fascinating to watch. Then there's the crazy story, which ranges from really good to really bad. It's good to see the tabloid media mentality mocked for the trash it is, glorifying evil just to get ratings and the evil killers feeding off that media frenzy. Most of the characters in this film, as bad as they are, are definitely attention-getting. The two leads, "Mickey and Mallory" are two names that now go together, thanks to this film and the ultra-sleazy portrayals of them by Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis.
THE BAD NEWS - Most of the people in this film, if not all, are so vile, so profane, so morally bankrupt, so disgusting you want to take a shower after watching this film. Even the film critics who gravitate toward evil were repulsed by this movie. I actually enjoyed the story up to a point: about the halfway mark. After that, it becomes one gigantic mess, almost too difficult to watch in one sitting. I am mainly referring to all the scenes in the prison including the drawn- out riot/prison break, which goes on way too long. Over 20 usages of the Lord's name in vain - almost all of them in the second half of the movie, didn't help in my rating. Tommy Lee Jones, as the warden, and Robert Downey, as the Aussie scumbag tabloid reporter, absolutely go over-the-top.
OVERALL - In order to stomach this film, you have to look at it as some outrageous satire on violence and the media and take these characters as extreme cartoon-like people and nothing else. Take nothing seriously here. It might help to wear earplugs, too, in profanity and just plan noise bother you.