Reviews

This film has haunted me for years since I caught it on late night TV,. Flms from this part of the world are often profoundly bleak and honest, often brutally so. This type of film-making is the antithesis of the generic, posturing American fluff we've all become accustomed to and is comparable to Tarkovsky as his best; as opposed to Soderbergh at his worst.

I have recently been fortunate to meet a Russian friend who gets me these films and these have again and again stirred up the emotions triggered by this, my first Russian-style masterpiece. The story is simple and is summed up neatly above, but words only serve to cheapen the insight and craft of such a masterful work, if you need plot-padding like token twists and such, you'd do best to avoid this.

In closing let me say: get it, steal it, do whatever you can to let this film into your heart.

If you appreciate terrible set-design, bad lighting, gruesome effects, awful casting and incongruous overstated music.... This film is for you! The ONLY redeeming feature of this film is Gary Oldman (as mentioned ad-nauseam by all the other reviewers). This is a lame story, with some appalling acting thanks mostly to the casting. Keanu Reeves seldom is anything but wooden (with the delightful exception of his role in The Gift - where he aptly played a redneck) but with the addition of an English accent we now have a wooden Reeves alloyed with an out-of-his-depths Depp in 'From Hell' - a similarly dodgy slock- horror thing. If you appreciated the realism and grit of Coppola's Apocalypse Now, you'll hate this as I did. Everything that was awesome about that film is conspicuously absent in this one. In closing I will add the obvious - I am very disappointed and I want that two hours of my life back!

This is a remake in every sense of the word. ie: they took a perfectly good film and made it again. This film is a cover not a remix and one where all members of the band lack the charisma and talent of the original. The original film is a heist movie about a millionaire industrialist type who runs a very tight art-theft operation, purely for his own enjoyment. The interesting bits are when an insurance investigator is set on him and they spar over the ethics of the "caper, sir". It's light on the surface, but has depth if you care to pay attention. They soundtrack also tells a story and syncs beautifully with the scenes in the film - like the game of chess between the two apparent adversaries and the song "His eyes, Her eyes". The chess game is one of the many innuendos of predator and prey, outwitting and seducing at the same time. The remake fails dismally because it lamely attempts to reproduce the soundtrack and casts the leads as caricatures of Steve and Faye - even down to a terrible impersonation by Pierce Brosnan of Steve's laugh which is so awful both my wife and I hit the floor in hysterics. The dodgy "brand new" sounding 'smooth jazz' sax in the soundtrack is simply awful, any sax player knows you have to go dig a horn out of the fifties if you want the best sound, this film is almost a like one of those dodgy Star Wars spoofs over at ifilm, simply laughable. 1/10.

This is a wonderful film for anyone who appreciates the craft of film-making. There is a totally consistent vision throughout and it all fits and syncs beautifully. From the direction through to the dialogue, editing and sound. Also some truly inspired performances by the supporting cast. Spader is a little weak, but perhaps that's like saying David Ducovny is weak in the X-Files; when anything else would be camp. By the time you see the end of the film you realise that he has truly studied his character and the resemblance is profound. A brilliant conspiracy film, though as mentioned it's always best to read the book and do your own research before you start quoting facts and figures to your friends. Being a sound guy though, what inspired me most was the overall sound design for the film - the way they blend sound within the film and the musical score and the fact that the use of various instruments is relevant to each sequence in the story - the use of piano during the intimate bedroom scene (he was destined to become a concert pianist) and so forth. In conclusion, I've read above that this was made for TV, which greatly impresses me as I hired it from the video store... made for TV is never like this. And I must mention that the style is perfect - the documentary format of this film is perfect for the subject matter and the creative licence with the editing actually works, I'd be afraid of overdoing it but they throw in fades to itself and layering, throwing white-balance to the wind, it's a flawless production, I'm just so impressed, so inspired to translate this into my own short films and be more daring. 9/10

When I saw Lost Highway after much hype, I thought it was OK for a low-budget first attempt. Until I found out it wasn't. I'd pretty much say the same for this film except that perhaps it was financed by a rich aunt. All the same themes and mechanisms are there from Lost Highway - the dodgy effects like strobing and fake epileptic fits, playing around with the manual focus and other indy style tricks to attempt to use the camera to tell the story and get us inside the characters head. And just as Lost Highway uses lingering face shots to indicate "I'm a good guy", "I'm a hard- nosed cop", "I've got amnesia" so too does this film. What has improved is the score. All the things attempted and totally botched up in the previous film 'in the series' are perfected here. Hearing languid string arrangements morph into almost sleazy-listening lounge is a real aural treat.

I'm no genius, but I do read the odd book, so there really wasn't much to think about. You'll pick up the gist of the story fairly quickly - just look for the usual clues, mainly things that don't quite fit. Arrgh! It's so pretentious! There's no great mystery I'm afraid. Just like it's predecessor - the entire film can be summed up in one sentence, which I'll spare you because I'd have to use rude and angry words. If you want to like Lynch, you'll want to like this - good luck to you, you've got a tough job ahead of you .

Final word: Pretentious. Heed the immortal words of Francis Ford Coppolla in Hearts Of Darkness. Go hire it if you don't know what they are. Final, final word: I get it already! get on with the film... Oh, for goodness sake - was this written by some self-important teenage artiste or a serious film-maker, cos I just can't decide. 1 star for using nice film stock and getting a halfway decent soundtrack.

I quite liked this film. But probably because I think there are perhaps more important things than the manner in which Anthony Hopkins is miscast. You just have to overlook that. Campbell Scott is great and really carries the whole film. I really enjoyed the way the film was held together, the cinematography and the use of really bad American Music to get across the brashness and invasiveness of their culture even back then. If you've read books like Spycatcher you'll appreciate this film. On the other hand if you think Bond films are good, you'll most likely hate it. I would have liked the sex scenes to be more, shall we say 'fleshed out', they fade off all too quickly. It's very rare in popular film that you get good sex scenes that are filmed with warmth and tenderness. The use of lighting and angles is great. What got to me more than Hopkin's dodgy accent was the stupid female character. Can't we just forget reality for a bit and stop casting women as quivering idiots. Sure that's how they seem to behave in all important situations, but it's so annoying to be put through it over and over again. Let's have an intelligent female lead who decides she's going to take responsibility for her dumb, impulsive behaviour and make amends. As opposed to leaving everything up to the bloke and then running off with his friend. And did anyone notice that all the men around her drink heavily? I think this would be a good book and there's obviously stuff missing from the film, but still I give it 8/10.