First half was great
Then it turned into another crazy white man story.
shareI remember feeling cheated. The trailer made out he was a normal guy who just flips out one day because modern life is just too cray cray, but then it turns out he’s basically a mentally ill psycho on a mission.
I also found Duvall’s character a bit blah, like did we need all the stuff about his wife etc?
There’s a really interesting film hiding in this mediocre cop-chases-psycho thriller.
Exactly. They couldn't just make a film about a working man getting pissed off and losing it, which is basically what everybody wanted to see. They had to moralize...
shareYou are all correct - this movie robs itself of the potential by making it into "of course a psycho nut is going to act like a psycho nut" instead of something poignant, like "this could happen to you, because our world is insane".
What a waste of potential.. Koyaanisqatsi was gutsier (no pun intended) than this movie, it actually shows us - without any words - just how INSANE our world is, and how easy that insanity is to see if you look at it from a slightly different perspective than what we are used to.
This movie COULD have been similar, it could have moralized about how terrible corporate greed is, and what it DOES to people, how unhealthy the cubicle wage-slavery and the car-centric commuting system (just because the corporations have paid for the offices for years to come, we can't have telecommuting, working from home, et cetera) is.
When you watch those 'Urbanist' videos from 'NotJustBikes' and some others, you have to wonder if 'car-centrism' is REALLY what is the best for everyone. Thankfully, in Europe, public transport is downright amazing compared to car-centric, almost third-world sh1tholes that think they're on the top of the world because everyone has a car.
In any case, this problem is showed in this movie in a very powerful way, but then the guy ALREADY BEING A PSYCHO dilutes that power until there's nothing left. It destroys this movie's potential and poignancy more aggressively than D-Fence destroys the small Korean store because he would have had to pay 35 cents more for a can of toilet-cleaning liquid than usual.
(Yes, I said it - that stuff is better for cleaning toilets than human consumption)
I agree, the stuff where he's going crazy at stuff and reacting were great and was the appeal of the movie.
I also found the Robert Duvall / wife stuff really slowed it down. But it kind of pays off because I remember a sense of worry with this character going up against D-FENS at the end.
I was disappointed in this film. I wanted him to be frustrated and angry at everyone and everything for being lackluster (lazy), unethical, apathetic, violent, loud, uncouth, because he feels society is going down the drain.
Instead we get a story tie-in with his wife and daughter. The film would've been fine without them. I thought that angle was unnecessary. In parts, this film is brilliant, but overall it's disappointing.
Loved Robert Duvall in this.
Exactly. It would be much better if he was just a ‘get off my lawn’ grouch who tipped over.
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