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Stranger Than Fiction (2000)
Takes the wrong turn
For the first hour and fifteen minutes of this film I kept thinking, "Wow, what a gem! I am so glad I found this movie." The movie was unexpectedly funny, the situation engaging and the director was skilled at creating a consistent tone for this black comedy. At around the hour-and-fifteen-minute point the plot seemed to come to a close and I was ready for the credits to roll. However at that point the movie took an infuriating turn. Not only did it completely change in tone - from comedy to high drama - but it introduced plot elements that, without being specific, negated much of what I had just seen.
Plot aside, why a movie's creators would want a film to be so funny for the first two acts and so deliberately unfunny for the third act is bewildering to me.
If movie sets up at the outset that it is a mystery, and then does something really twisty at the end you can enjoy it. But the movie did not prepare me for how it resolved and so I felt cheated out of a great comedy. "No Way Out" with Kevin Costner does a similar thing in the last one minute of the film. My recommendation is that you watch this for the first two third and then hit the stop button.
You will have a great time.