WolfHai

Some movies are disappointing right from the beginning. They start cheap, they continue cheap, you don't want to know more about the story or the characters, and you turn off after 30 minutes.

This movie is different. It starts rather good. Halle Berry is beautiful, interesting in her face and as her character. A murder happens, we want to know who it was. We enjoy the classy ambiance of the advertising agency, the restaurants, the fashion. The relationships between the characters makes us curious which directions the relationships will take. Bruce Willis, likable and smart, with the vices of a successful womanizer. I was still into the story after about 1 1/2 hours! But then it happens: Everyone of the important characters starts to reveal more and more tragic entanglements, weird obsessions, strange pasts, and mean streaks, more and weirder (a) than is humanly possible and (b) than fit into a two-hour movie or a viewer's heart. Even worse, these newly revealed secrets do not fit the characters, seem just artificially and arbitrarily added on. The characters begin to lose credibility. At this point, I stopped to identify with and lost interest in them. The story fell apart. The end was neither intellectually nor emotionally satisfying, leaving the viewer with a bad aftertaste.

If the makers had not tried to be too clever by putting twist upon twist upon twists into this thriller, but had just let the characters' natural development guide them, it could have been a good movie.

Here you can watch stupid ugly people doing stupid ugly things, and there is really no point to it. Yes, the cast is superb. I had not expected to see Brad Pitt and George Clooney do such great jobs in playing upper lower class: Wow, these guys can do more than just play suave and handsome! However, I felt invited by the film to do a malicious voyeuristic look into the cheapness of other people's souls, and I felt abused.

I did not find any redeeming qualities. The story was boring. I watched a pointless killing. After about an hour and fifteen minutes I turned the DVD player off and went to bed. Sorry, I cannot even tell you the end.

The DVD version of this movie was advertised as a comedy. Maybe the movie should have been advertised as the "Existential exploration of the lives of English murderers in the early 21st century". Or as an "Inquiry into the meaninglessness of life exemplified by three men who commit brutal acts". A comedy it is not.

The movie showed the miserable and pointless lives of three hit men, interspersed with ugly scenes of murder. There were some lame jokes on Bruges and Belgium, which did not get better by overuse. The film was slow, presenting an elegiac, not a comedic tempo. Maybe some people find the display of the internal conflicts of hit men funny. I found it -- at least in this movie -- repulsive and nauseating. At the end of the movie I had a bad taste in my mouth that I wouldn't wish on anybody.

The acting and the photography were good. Forget the rest.

The movie is from Japan and it is 20 years old -- it feels fresh as if done yesterday and there is no cultural barrier whatsoever. The drawings of the landscape are fantastic and are alone worth watching this movie: the reflection of the sun on the leaves of the trees, the reflection of the sky in the rice paddies, the high summer clouds, the flowers detailed and colorful.

Two girls, maybe four and ten, move with their father into their new house in this landscape. How they discover, befriend, and master their new environment is shown in a detailed, loving, but not sentimental way. Watching these girls create their own adventures and act and react in them, is delightful. Even more, they reveal something deeply human; and the audience can rediscover its own humanness by watching and identifying with them.

I rented the first DVD after reading the positive reviews -- what a disappointment! The themes and the jokes were just one step up from the Saturday Night Live jokes for adolescents having grown up in a prudish nation. I was supposed to laugh about: men dressing as women, someone taken for a lesbian who isn't, immature mid-20s men who eat with their mouths open, small penises, "embarrassing" mishaps, crass sexual advances aiming at the wrong object, and such.

The acting was not too good either (except, I thought, Alec Baldwin).

Summary: If you watched SNL three years ago and really, really liked it, this is the show for you!

I give it 10 out of 10, not because it is the greatest movie ever, but because in this genre, namely the not-stupid-comedy, it is simply perfect. And you can enjoy it even when you are over 40. I, and the people next to me (many of them real adults!), laughed all through the movie. There was even some applause at the end (and this was not Caracas, Venezuela, but Boulder, Colorado). It is laughter that (I think) you do not have to be ashamed of: You do not laugh because people are denigrated or humiliated (as in so many other movies, which, in my brain, leave a bad aftertaste), but because, well, because things are simply funny.

By the way, I do not think that the R rating is justified. The "sexual content" was basically limited to the f-word, and maybe someone who does not know what cocaine is would be slightly surprised. But the movie is not sleazy, and the drug use (which does not play a big role anyway) is not glorified, neither in the positive nor in the negative sense. But beware, I am German, and German sensitivities are slightly different from the Americans'.

I don't want to tell you anything about the story or the characters, as the less you know, the more you discover for yourself and the more fun you'll have. Go, take your spouse along, and, if the f-word does not shock you (or your kid--well, your kid probably less than you anyway), take your 13- or 14-year-old along too. A real feel-good movie!

If you are old enough to see this movie, and if you are a man, what is there not to like? The women are beautiful, really beautiful. Alison Lohman's dresses are most exquisite (as is her acting as well as the acting of the two male leads). Many of the scenes have a nice, non-vulgar erotic tension between the characters. The plot is a thriller (I am not going to give anything away here), the side plots are interesting (e.g., the insights into show business, the Mafia's involvement in show business, and the relationship between our two main male characters), and the sound track, if I remember correctly, was really good.

The only drawback was that I had some trouble understanding the plot, as the cutting and editing made it sometimes confusing (leaving me with questions such as, *when* was that, *where* was that, is this now supposed to be *before* of *after* the other scene). But then, that meant I had to see the movie again (which having rented the DVD was no problem), and that was not so bad either.

Enjoy this movie, and if you sometimes lose the thread of the story, just enjoy the images with your eyes.

The movie has a complicated plot, or rather a number of plots. For more clarity, and for people who have seen the movie already, I recommend the message board for this movie: check out the thread "Can someone explain this mess to me!", which contains an excellent summary (containing spoilers) by the user "dalati".

It's a long movie, and I was not bored for a minute. Every scene was somehow dense with interesting dialog, interesting characters, action, or some other tension. The sound track added to the effect. Although the main characters had to fill the typical roles of the oil business (The oil businessman, The lawyer, The CIA agent, The MBA in the finance industry, The emir, and others) they were not stereotypes but all interesting human beings, and the movie kept me interested in them personally. This goes down to the minor roles: e.g., I found the middle-aged CIA lady who is one of George Clooney's bosses quite captivating.

And I like movies where I can learn about the world. This movie takes you across the globe and back (with some wonderful landscapes, city sceneries, ocean views,...) and across social and cultural boundaries. Fascinating! Does the movie tell us The Truth about the oil business? Or are some of the features of the movie's oil business way off the real world? I have no idea. Probably more than half of the movie is true, but which half? Before passing judgment here, I would need more independent research. Thus, I do not think you should take Syriana as the final word on how the world works. But as a movie: great!

I rented the movie because it said "based on a play by Oscar Wilde". There are a number of Oscar Wilde movie-plays (play-movies?) out that I truly enjoyed.

Not this one. I liked neither Ms. Johansson nor Ms. Hunt in their roles; probably the casting, maybe the acting was bad. The story was not very credible either; often I could not understand the motives, worries, and problems that the characters supposedly had. And shouldn't there be at least a tiny little sexual tension between Mr. Windermore and Mrs. Erlynne or between Mrs. Windermore and the Lord who was after her, or at least some wit? And why on earth did Mrs. Windermore love Mr. Windermore and vice versa, something they were not tired of telling us?

If the acting was bland, the script should have saved the movie, but it did not. Where was the spark? Usually Oscar Wilde's plays have a certain pace, but this was dragging on with rather predictable and some outright silly dialog. Did anyone find the gossiping women funny? And the scenery, probably thought to give the movie a light touch, in its being so unbelievably "pittoresque" seemed to have a belittling effect on either the characters or the story or both.

Sorry I am so harsh on this movie. The makers probably had the best of intentions (witty Oscar Wilde, carefree summer Italy, beautiful people, rich decor), but somehow it did not work - at least not for me.

The good things first (sing this): Summer in the city!, and the city, New York, the one star in this movie that looks good 'til the very end, is just beautiful. And because it is summer, and because the city looks as good as the women that populate it, we do not ask that whatever Robert Downey is up to in the beginning is in any way "realistic", as long as it is carefree, funny, and playfully energetic. But from then on...

I do not ask of a movie that it be literally truthful, however, there should be some inner truth, a veracity in the characters or a thoughtful comment on life or something--and this movie does not have any of it. It seems that most of the characters are caricatures, such as the alcoholic gambling father, the mafia bad guy and his entourage (a whole armada with Italian accents), the corrupt policeman, and the Columbian rich man; nobody is in any way real, not even three-dimensional. (I did like the bad guy's girlfriend though, probably also a caricature, but at least flirty, lively, and refreshing.) On top of that, our romantic couple has no chemistry (at least not any I can detect), always deadly for a romantic comedy. The philosophic sentences about life and relationships that come out of our protagonists' mouths are, well let's say, completely beside the point. They are probably supposed to show that our characters are "serious", and maybe if I was 16 again, I would find these parts of the movie "deep", but at my age, I just find them false and somewhat annoying.

So, if you have seen this movie already, I hope you enjoyed the city, the summer, Robert Downey... and maybe some thing or other that I have missed.

First I want to say that I liked the movie, especially Nicolas Cage and the way he plays characters that are not at peace with themselves. I liked his self-reflective voice-overs (as I also liked it in "Lord of War"). Michael Caine was certainly impressive.

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This review focuses on one aspect of the movie, and you probably should have seen the movie before you read it. If you want to avoid spoilers, please stop reading now!

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This review focuses on how unfairly divorced husbands and fathers are treated, in this movie, and probably in society in general.

The divorce between David (Nicolas Cage) and Noreen (Hope Davis) seems to have been Noreen's idea. We see through most of the movie David acting as a jerk, a man frequently losing his temper, someone who is utterly shallow in his profession: a loser. His wife Noreen, however, is shown as usually well-composed, always reasonable, and rather good looking. She certainly deserves better! At one time, Noreen explains to David why their sex life had been so unsatisfactory, namely because she did not like his body (and, in order to make it more hurtful for him, she enumerates all his body parts she did not like). I, the viewer, was at first tempted to agree that she had a reasonable point. But did she?

Why, if Noreen hated David's body so much, did she marry him in the first place? Did he get a new body since then? And it certainly did not look as if he had acquired all of his jerky character traits only recently; very likely he had had at least a core of them all the time. Furthermore, she is probably co-responsible for some of his behaviors and traits: in the few scenes from his married life we see how she tends to subtly humiliate him, e.g., when she tells him not to forget the tartar sauce. I think if my wife spoke to me in such a way I would refuse to go out at all; but if I went, I would certainly forget the tartar sauce just out of spite. Another problem is that the movie focuses on David's difficulties being an effective father; indeed, he is rather clumsy. Never once does the movie explicitly point out the deficiencies of Noreen, who has a greater responsibility for the children's current problems as the children live with her. But not once do we see her do an effective parental intervention; she seems only to complain to him that he does not do it right.

This movie does not once suggest that this father and husband deserves (and has deserved all along) his (ex-)wife's emotional support. This movie does not ask if it is fair that his wife, despite being contemptuous of him and the superficial way he earns his money, receives a considerable amount of his income. The movie takes it as a matter of course that his ex-wife has kept the comfortable house and the children, while he is forced to move to that isolating and emotionally cold apartment. When he resents his ex-wife's new boyfriend, who very likely sleeps in the bed that he still pays for, he is just depicted as vengeful and narrow-minded.

And is his job as a weatherman really so easy? It looks easy and it is well remunerated, but it certainly takes a lot of hypocrisy to do it. The movie shows that this hypocrisy does come with a hefty price. Neither the movie nor his wife seem to give him any credit for this at all.

In all this, this movie probably just reflects current social judgment. And, as far as movies go, that's fine with me: I do not ask of movies to fight for "the good cause." I just want them to tell a story well, and this movie does that. But, just as society, this movie is merciless with a man who, by whatever criteria, turns out to be a social loser, and it does not bother very much to investigate his side of the story. In that, it seems, this movie is just as unfair as the society and the times that produced it.

Two couples, upper middle class and no financial problems: four friends. They marry at about the same time, each have two kids, they spend a lot of time together, *best* friends... And then, one of them split up.

The movie, by the way of dialogs, shows how each of the four's world is shaken up, as their unspoken contract, namely, to raise their kids together, to grow old together, is broken. Questions: Whose fault is the breakup, husband's or wife's? Which couple has it right: those, who stick to marriage or those who break out of the rut? Who has the right to judge: those who keep to their marriage vows, or those who acknowledge that their relationship has been a lie? Can we demand that our friends always tell us the truth? How do we react when our closest friends question the unspoken foundations of our lives? The movie follows the actions and reactions of our characters in this situation. Nobody is right, nobody is wrong. In a way, everybody is right. That is what makes the movie interesting. The men act the way men act, and the women act the way women act. The questions are not really answered, they are debated, and the movie shows that completely grown-up people are really unable to answer them.

I liked the performances of the actors. Andie McDowell was as beautiful as she always is. I also liked the two guys. The environment, the camera, etc. seemed just right. But the most interesting were the dialogs. So, if you like movies in which people investigate themselves, their lives, and their relationships, without giving you a definite answer what to do, you may enjoy this movie.