Another pointless American remake

The original was rambling

Nope. The dialouige was sharp and quick. No rambling to be found.

, not much happening

Well if you look at the film in terms of a mere sequence of events, yes, not much happens, but that's a pathetically shallow way to analyze a movie. This is a character driven movie, and those don't tend to have a lot happening in them (Taxi Driver, Mean Streets, any John Cassavette directed movie, etc.). What's important is not what's happening in a plot sense, but what's happening with the characters, characters who have no true obstacle. The police are utterly ineffectual in this film and can be escaped at any given opprotunity. What's happening is we have a character like Michel, hiding behind his mask of coolness, who is completely transparent in his motives, longing for something that seems to only bring him bother and despair, that brings him to ruin yet he pursues it (well before the ending he tells Partricia "you make me want to puke"). Then you have Patricia, who has no mask, but her motives aren't transparent because she doesn't even seem to understand how she thinks and why she does things. It creates a great chemistry.

Even thematically, the film isn't merely a homage to classic american cinema, it's also a deconstruction of mainstream cinema (a good example being what I brought up earlier in how the police, who normally would be the pressing threat, are virtually ignored) but while being a moderately serious, existential movie. Many call movies existential if they are even vaguely artsy, but this actually does go by the basic tenants of that philosophy (such as assuming total responsibility for what happens to you and what you do, regardless of outside forces)

So no, I will vehemently disagree with "nothing happening".

and unrealistic acting.

Nor was it meant to be. The actors were often saying lines they were just told to say on the spot. He instructed Partricia not to display overt emotions. The highly stylized, Humphry Boggart esque performance was part of Michel's facade. Godard was big on using a variety of techniques to distance the audience emotionally from the characters and narratives so they had to truly think about what they saw. I'm not entirely sure if he was employing that here or not, as Partricia's lack of emotion could be put down to her internal confusion of how to feel.

Regardless, complaining about the unrealistic acting in "Breathless" is like complaining about a lack of kung fu action sequences in "The Godfather": it's pointless to complain about something not being there that was never intended to be there.

This had a tight plot

Are you being serious? It's practically a scene for scene remake. How is the plot tight here but not in the original?

You know, personally, I think the French are overrated as filmmakers. There are good French films, but I find myself watching Italian movies more frequently.

France and Italy have both released their fair share of cinematic masterworks. Rating one over the other is absolutely asinine because such a statement would be based on a very limited number of films from each country. However many you think you've seen, it doesn't even come close to amounting to the entire cinematic output of either country.

"It's just you and me now, sport"-Manhunter

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