Movie Review for Funny Games

Sometimes there comes a movie that doesn't behave as other movies do. Instead of accentuating the standard plots, themes, and events that is expected by most, it simply portrays a sequence of happenings. It just is. Funny Games is one such film.

Funny Games is a verbatim remake of the 1997 Austrian movie of the same name, and tells the tale of a small upper-class family and the two oddball characters they encounter while vacationing at their beautiful and yet eerily isolated summer villa. From there the sadism ensues, what with the sort of sick and twisted, devil-may-care house invasion that rivals even that of Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange in its disturbing depictions.

The gore is surprisingly minimal in this horror flick, with a more acute emphasis on the premise of house guests who won't leave. It begins somewhat slow but immediately picks up as soon as the two adolescent villains make their appearance. From then on it takes you on a pretty vigorous ride which to my irritation is stopped short somewhat awkwardly by excessive indie-experimentation.

I'm not sure what exactly the writers were trying to do but they certainly managed to be far more ballsy than any dimwitted Hollywood joint that panders to its audience like it was constituted of infants, which is something I like. However, these movie-makers go a bit far in their transgressions; they fail to realize the difference between teasingly disregarding the audience's preconceived notions and being downright mean. Making allusions that simply result in red herrings and dishing out exhilarating tension that only leads to anticlimax isn't even the kind of slap in the face Tarantino would dare.

It's rather obvious these guys were trying to imitate Tarantino, utilizing extremely long-lasting camera shots that would make even the most patient of individuals piss their pants in anticipation. I felt like a crack junkie, yearning for the next scene's arrival like it were my next fix. There was no musical score to speak of (aside from off-the-wall heavy metal used in the credits and one of the chase scenes) which certainly added to the minimalist, teeth-grinding tension.

Naomi Watts proved her acting skills here, completely stealing many of the scenes even when wearing nothing but a bloodied, vomit-covered cardigan vest and looking her worst. Meanwhile Tim Roth, respectable in his own right, was somewhat forgettable with his more stoic approach to his role. What scenes Watts didn't take, Michael Pitt was sure to hijack along with the family as he plays the sinister golfer that coordinates the night's heinous, aristocratic delinquency; at times sharing his satisfaction by addressing the audience with an evil wink or rhetorical question.

While it seems that this movie was trying to achieve an unapologetically, unprecedented level of sadism, not only to its protagonists, but to its audience as well, I think it paid a heavy price in doing so. Near the end, all that can be felt is aggravation as it seems that the writers were gleefully tantalizing you the whole time with worse tortures than the characters went through. Next time they should just keep the cruelty behind the fourth wall.

Movie Review for Before The Devil Knows You're Dead

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is one of those types of movies that you never really pay attention to when it's released in theaters; those types that you only rub a chin at only after it has sneaked its way into your Netflix queue by some curious relative. It's the type of movie that you spend its entire living-room-showing pondering and scratching your head on what to make of it: heads or tails?

Being named after a rather devilish Irish saying, this little diddy tells the tale of two brothers: Andy Hanson (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and Hank Hansen (Ethan Hawke). Both of them hard up for some much needed cash--Andy because of a vaccation-hungry wife (Marisa Tomei), some embezzlement issues, and a slightly nettlesome heroin addiction, and Hank because of God-knows-what--they decide to rob a mom-n-pop jewelry store. However, this isn't just any joe-schmo, run-of-the-mill mom-n-pop jewelry store; it is actually owned by the brothers' own parents, an opportunity that they deem to be too easy to pass up. Enlisting some shady help from a fellow criminal, Hank attempts to execute the so-called "harmless" heist only to muck it up into a free-for-all catastrophe of horror, guilt, and one dead mom.

Right off the bat, the story begins with a lubricious sex-scene and some exciting crime-induced bloodshed. While it peters off from there, it swells back up occasionally through what seems to be an incessant montage of flashbacks. This sort of non-linear storytelling can often times be relentlessly climactic, but it seems here to be a somewhat contrivance; as if the writers were trying to snare some Pulp Fiction, or Memento flare for their own. Quite honestly, I adored the plot and premise, but found the whole time-traveling device to be redundant and completely unnecessary. Every time the story was getting thicker and juicier, it skidded to a halt only to return to a previous time and from a different character's perspective. I felt myself being sucked out of any hope of immersion each time. Despite this, I traversed the entire two hours holding a keen liking for the script and dialog, suspending whatever time-travel annoyances to the wind. Until the ending, of course. With the same sort of slack-jaw, drop-cliff ending that No Country for Old Men kicked us in the nuts with, it simply stops. It doesn't end; it just stops. In the end, the credits rolled and so did my eyes. Nothing but tails for the story.

While I can only stutter spastic statements of appraisal for the past works of Sydney Lumet (12 Angry Men, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon), I find myself somewhat irritated by his cinematography in this flick. He shot it with high definition video, which while eye-popping and even mesmerizing at times, didn't bolster the movie into the cohesive package I would have liked to have seen. Instead, I couldn't help but feel like I was watching a prolonged episode of some high-budget, primetime TV show. The musical score didn't sit well with me either; it melodied when it shouldn't have, kept silent when it wasn't supposed to, and didn't completely fit the atmosphere of the movie. All in all, the AV department gets a tails.

Big time heads, however, goes to the acting. Phillip Seymour Hoffman does the same sorts of things that he tends to do here: give an amazing performance. He certainly showed his acting diversity and proved to me that he by no means should ever be typecast out of villainous roles. Ethan Hawke offered up a dutiful performance, though I would have liked to have seen more spastic subservience to his brother and a little more face-clawing guilt for his mother. Marissa Tomei was a joy to see, though it was mostly because the times she did show up, it was without clothes. Besides that, her acting was adequate, however, when contrasted with Hoffman's performance, she seemed to be little more than a presence.

All in all, I feel that the acting and first 99% of the story couldn't save this flick. After rolling around its edge a couple of times, this coin just flopped over, heads first.