I will not bother with any discussion about the technical excellence of Messrs Slater and Macy's performances--there are only two female roles and they are both extremely weak--or about whether this may have been ably directed or shot. You will know why by the time you read the next sentence. In a film whose first 20 minutes and last five minutes only have anything to do with objective reality, all the rest being the fantasy of a delusional, borderline personality, nothing truly meaningful can be said: it's all the hallucination of a madman before he shoots himself rather than killing a half dozen other innocents.
This is the kind of film that excites the fevered brains of would be brilliant potential geniuses in their second year of film school. I know, because I went there, and we were all geniuses.
But a film that twists and mauls the sensibility of its viewers and then makes no point at all (because if nearly the whole film, or you could say the entire film, is a delusional misfit's fantasy prior to his suicide, nothing in its content can be valid, no matter how well done, striking technically, innovative, or novel it may be...and this film is not novel: Jacob's Ladder was a similar and far more meaningful film. Not innovative, I would say something like Blow-Up is a no-hope movie that really makes a tremendous philosophical point without having to smirk in your face after you watch it all the way through: He Was A Quiet Man does this, just to show you the film makers, like Bob's employers and superiors, know how smart they are, and how dumb you are. And they want you to know that too. Blow-Up respects the audience, is what I mean.
This film hates its audience, and wants to screw them up. And you well may be screwed up, after watching this, because you started to really car whether Bob is going to pull himself together and make it, and whether this everyman gets to be a true hero in the face of all these rotten people, but he is just a loser, pretty much the way his superior, played by Jamison Jones, views him. If you're not a golf-playing, hard-drinking, insincere prick, you might as well shoot yourself and get it over with.
This film is not striking technically, by now we've seen all kinds of talking animals fronting for the delusions of a psycho: think of Sam in the Summer of Sam. But Spike Lee loves his audience, he is a film lover too. The mind behind this film hates its potential viewers, we are too stupid to get it, so we might as well be deceived the whole bloody way through.
Same feeling I had after walking the railroad tracks to get to school as a short cut---a hell of a long slog, and rough on the footwear, with a strong chance of getting blindsided in the end. Go the long way round to avoid this next time.
Another bad sign--James Berardinelli really loves it, and he manages to miss the point of just about everything except where to sign his paychecks.
This is the kind of film that excites the fevered brains of would be brilliant potential geniuses in their second year of film school. I know, because I went there, and we were all geniuses.
But a film that twists and mauls the sensibility of its viewers and then makes no point at all (because if nearly the whole film, or you could say the entire film, is a delusional misfit's fantasy prior to his suicide, nothing in its content can be valid, no matter how well done, striking technically, innovative, or novel it may be...and this film is not novel: Jacob's Ladder was a similar and far more meaningful film. Not innovative, I would say something like Blow-Up is a no-hope movie that really makes a tremendous philosophical point without having to smirk in your face after you watch it all the way through: He Was A Quiet Man does this, just to show you the film makers, like Bob's employers and superiors, know how smart they are, and how dumb you are. And they want you to know that too. Blow-Up respects the audience, is what I mean.
This film hates its audience, and wants to screw them up. And you well may be screwed up, after watching this, because you started to really car whether Bob is going to pull himself together and make it, and whether this everyman gets to be a true hero in the face of all these rotten people, but he is just a loser, pretty much the way his superior, played by Jamison Jones, views him. If you're not a golf-playing, hard-drinking, insincere prick, you might as well shoot yourself and get it over with.
This film is not striking technically, by now we've seen all kinds of talking animals fronting for the delusions of a psycho: think of Sam in the Summer of Sam. But Spike Lee loves his audience, he is a film lover too. The mind behind this film hates its potential viewers, we are too stupid to get it, so we might as well be deceived the whole bloody way through.
Same feeling I had after walking the railroad tracks to get to school as a short cut---a hell of a long slog, and rough on the footwear, with a strong chance of getting blindsided in the end. Go the long way round to avoid this next time.
Another bad sign--James Berardinelli really loves it, and he manages to miss the point of just about everything except where to sign his paychecks.