Reviews

I don't know what is wrong all the reviewers. I also do not know what is wrong with Mr. Night. It seemed that he just gone from great with his Sixth Sense to bad to worst. Writing your own scripts and directing it is an excellent move, however, it does not mean it will always work out. In the later cases of Night's movies, it appeared that he rushed his scripts and did not take any care at all on examining his plot or characters. When you have characters explaining things near the end of the film to the audience and when the dialogs are said purely to explain something to us, we know there is something wrong. And when the plot had to be twisted so much in order to fit everything in and rendered it so twisted it became disfigured and disjointed, it is another bad sign.

Mr. Night used to be compared with Mr. Hitchcock, I would dare say this comparison is getting a little too absurd. Intelligent scripts are not easy to come by and intelligent scripts with symbolic meanings are even harder to come by. If one is to argue the fact that this movie is also about the supression of a community through the usage of fear etc...I would have to conclude that you had watched very little old films of the great eras of Hithcocks and other great directors.

SPOILERS I was surpirsed to see not many liked this film for I personally really loved it. The directing was well done and the dialogs is excellent. The struggle within the police is evident. The movie is devided in three acts. First being an introduction and setting of premises. Second is a character study of the main character why showing secondary qualities of the police. Third is the struggle of this new understanding/knowledge and the conflict between the two characters. The script was written cleverly and reminds me sort of the script of the 'crying game'; with plenty of dialogs and tension. This film is a must see, but only if you have an open mind and a love to films.

spoilers. I do want to like this film. I have high hopes when I enter in the cinema after hearing so many good things about the film. But I can't help myself from thinking that this idea had been done once too many times. There are just too many films made about world war 2 and the Nazis.

I personally did not feel that the concept of the main character being a 'pianist' is very necessary to the plot structure, (they don't have a very close link), and also I felt that Brody did a good job, but I think Jack was better in schmidt. I did not really get into the film's emotional side, there were many graphic scenes, people are shot at close range, and people jumping out from buildings. As usual, we will see that the Germans are evil enemies and one of them will be nice just to prove the point that not all are bad; a plot devise also used too many times.

Good film, if this is made few years ago, maybe it is better. I perfer Life is Beautiful more than this film.

Spoilers.

That was what Billy said to Halle and that was what I thought the movie was about, there was not alot of direction.

The movie was pretty fast paced, and that may not be a bad thing but it can have a problem of viewers not being able to get involved in the story. There was not a moment I can feel that Billy was racist, it just seems like the actors are going through the motions but really can't connect emotionally. Bill is an excellent actor, I loved him in "Man who wasn't there", but I don't feel he got enough chance to perform here. Halle, well, she is famous for being beautiful and she got paid one extra milion for the sex scene, but can she really act? I don't know, the film didn't give her enough room to show that.

I think the main problem with this film is the story. It doesn't flow very well. One second Hank's son die and the next Leticia 's son die and tension was not even being built for these supposed 'important scenes', I got the feeling that the director wanted to get these over and done with so that we can get to the main concern in the movie, that is the relationship between Leticia and Hank. It was way too easy for Hank to feel sorry Leticia if he is a racist. And what is up with Leticia's son being killed by a car? One second they were walking on the street and the next second he was on the ground with his mom by his side.

If one just want to watch a film where a man who is extremely racial prejudice against a race and later learns to accept and ask for redemption, watch American History X. The acting in that is alittle bit more realistic.

Spoiler

I didn't want to see this movie in the cinema. But a friend insisted and I went. The first few minutes into the movie and I see how the movie was carried out, I knew that I will be in for a long boring sleep session. When the girls heard the phone rang and they were spooked to get it and later found out it was her parent, I was about to leave the cinema. The rest of the movie was just a thriller investigation of what 'the ring' is.

I have never feel so strong negatively in my opinions towards a movie before, but this is the first one. (Not even towards Eight Legged Freaks) I thought it was really a waste of my time and degrading my intelligence. The only good part of the movie was a few seconds near the end...but of course, the damage was done...

it is infact a serious joke this movie is 7.9 HIGHER than The Birds and Rope by Hitchcock. Now that is very scary.

Spoilers

Besides from Vertigo, this is probably one of my favourite of Hitchcocks. The filming technique was interesting and also the way it absorbs the viewers. Hitchcock had a very good way of doing that. It doesn't matter if the film was made many years ago, it still have this affect of triggering certain emotions.

An interesting note I think was that the reason why the guys got caught was due to their 'inferior moral' characters. They got caught because in their own terms, they are limited, obligated by their human morals. If they were not restricted in this sense, I don't think they will get caught.

A very interesting movie. 8.2/10

Spoilers.

no matter how great the directing is, if the film has a bad script, there is nothing one can do to save it. The 'baddies' in the movie are similar to the guys in 'Home Alone'; just plain stupid. When Jodie was smashing all the cameras and one of the guy said, "now why didn't we think of that" gives big indication of bad script writing. But considering the person that did the script also am responsible for Jarassic Park, I guess it is expected. David's direction is not bad, he attempted to bring in a few interesting shots and camera angles, but the 'computer generated' effect is alittle too obvious. If we are to talk about suspense and tension build ups, it is still a long way from the standards of Hitchcock.