Film Reviews by None

..would've been more engaging.

As watery thin as his paintings, this fails to engage, gives no insights or revelations (indeed the substantive 'romantic' encounters are admitted to being wholly fictional). It looks lovely. But that's not enough.

In short: unpleasant person lucks out at every stage, learns nothing but prospers.

It looks beautiful, but it's a hollow, bleak world. Everything you ever suspected or feared about the vacuity of LA and TV news is here, and Jake Gyllenhaal's performance is a masterclass in underacting. Only occasionally do you get flashes that his apparent self delusion and self-help/management mantras might mask a true evil.

You might want to shower after watching, it leaves that kind of corrupt scent on you....

Good lord why did you send me this?! I'm sure I didn't ask for it!

It's been a while since I've seen such a self obsessed, self deluded shard of smug. I kept expecting jokes to come but at no time did this raise a smile. It's structured like a comedy, what with the crazy (but so wise) slacker, the neurotic liberal arts guy at it's core; Elizabeth Olsen as the whimsical late teen/early old lady role; Alison Janney (actually wandered in from another, better movie) as the soulless teacher of Romantic Literature (or was that the joke?); Richard Jenkins as the retiring teacher who it seems is going to a dark corner, then...well, not.

I did laugh at our hero wandering around New York gurning at people as he listens to random bits of classic music which the young(yet old) Olsen has turned him on to. No one hits him. It's New York, just just don't behave like that and no expect at least verbals.

And the Manhattan connection: older guy with age inappropriate partner finds she's wiser than him. Or something.

I've had candy floss with more gravitas than this movie.

Joyously callous and self centred losers delude themselves that they've got a chance in the world. Rinse, repeat. It should be horrible, you should hate them but it's too damn funny. Where's seasons 2-10, I need to see them now?!

Shot moodily. Lit dimly. Acted badly.

It's almost a case of someone having a vague idea of what makes a thriller work but not having ever seen one before.

Oddly unengaging, considering the two leads, and frankly nonsensical in execution.

At no point did I beleive in her character or her attraction to the cop, particularily as her suspicions mount. The conclusion is utterly ridiculous, though I'm sure has symbolic meaning. Meta-themed thrillers are fine just so long as you care about the hero and can find humanity in their plight beyond the hidden meanings of the plot.

Rubbish.

If you've seen the trailer (the Red Band one) then, really, don't bother with the film. You've seen the best jokes and the bones of the plot (which riffs shamelessly on the story beats of Back to the Future). Chevy Chase's 'pool repairman' character is oddly underwritten, Crispen Glover is -well, Crispen Glover. The leads are all appalling characters you'd run a mile from. It tries heart-heartedly to capture the vibe of an 80s comedy but just falls flat. There are laughs, but I'd already seen them in the trailer. The ending is unforgivably stupid, though, again, takes beats from BTTF.

Maybe if it hadn't come lauded with praise and trophies I could have been more forgiving. However, this looks and feels like a limp-wristed remake of the seminal Grand canyon- a movie which expressed the same gulf of life experiences in people living geographically close but in wholly different worlds. Nothing in here matches the sheer horror of the scene in Grand Canyon where the mother realizes the bland insurance salesman at her door is trying to sell her a policy to cover the potential funeral expenses of her young child- on the basis that life is brief and brutal in her neighbourhood so you might as well prepare.

Characters lives cross over in to many pat and co-incidental ways, and too many fine actors get to do little but express a view point. We have characteristics, not characters.

Sandra Bullock is wasted, her epiphany almost an irrelevance. Don Cheadle's character is the most fleshed out but still suffers from an unsatisfying resolution of family issues. Brendan Fraser is amiable but comes across as a pallid retread of the complex and compromised character that Kevin Kline played in Grand Canyon.

Rent the better, earlier film- there's a terrific turn by Steve Martin who's character has become a 'not black enough' TV producer in this version.

Maybe the hype was too great, the weight of such expectation led to me finding this wanting. The narrative drive in oddly unchallenging, events are played out at a steady pace, and the action is uninvolving. The characters are uniformly unlikeable.

On the plus side: The music and cinematography is astonishing.

The ending, unfortunately, made me laugh which I'm sure wasn't the intention.

A fine movie- a family crisis/finding your soul/quirky neighbourhood piece. Zak Braff is a fine writer and shows potential to be a classy director however it's ironic that the reason he got to make this movie -his winning goofy persona on Scrubs- makes him the weakest part of the film.

It's abundantly clear in one of the deleted scenes (a confrontation between Andrew and his father) that Zack Braff really, really wants to be Jack Nicholson circa 'Five Easy Peices'. And the young Jack would have played that scene with gravitas and pathos. Zack is a bit whiney.

The confrontation is actually key to moving the story forward and it's abscence indicates the film maker (Zack) was unconvinced that the star (Zack) didn't carry the scene.

Natalie Portman is just deleriously good, her best showing since Leon. Ian Holm makes the most of a buttoned down role, and you should really check out the deleted scene to apreciate how anguished his character is. The supporting actors are all fine and winning despite the head end, drugged out characters they have to play.

All in all a great first film despite it's star's lightweight performance... initially he's meant to be deaded by prescription pharmecuticals but he doesn't really open out enough as he blossoms.

Great use of TV static, a tormented central performance by Keaton but a plot that, in the end, fails the stylish buildup with a nonsensical illogical resolution.

It's ok to be mysterious and creepy but you've got to do better than this to make a satisfactory scarefest.