The fundamental flaw in this film is that none of the characters are likable. Hitchcock made films where you want the "bad" guy to get away with the crime. In here, the three roommates were complete jerks, especially Alex. The dead body unfazed them, etc. How can anyone possibly root for them to "get away with it" when they are so unlikable?
shareThing is, Danny Boyle apparently thought that most audience members don't invest much into movie characters anyway. It's only the intellectuals who appreciate well-built characters.
Honestly, I think that's a pretty patronizing view to take, but then again, underestimating audiences hasn't prevented some people from making truly awful movies into smash hits.
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Danny Boyle apparently thought that most audience members don't invest much into movie characters anyway. It's only the intellectuals who appreciate well-built characters.
Honestly, I think that's a pretty patronizing view to take
You wanted them to be saints? What a boring movie THAT would be...
shareI agree with the OP. It isn't the expectation that they should be saints, because if they were there would be no story, which in this case is propelled by the unsaintly quality of greed. But really, none of the characters are likeable so it is hard to care what happens to them.
It isn't that there is no difference in their characters but it is hard to say any of them are better than the others.
However, I wouldn't say it makes the film a failure, I would simply say it's a weak point in an otherwise excellent film.
"Chicken soup - with a *beep* straw."
Although if the film is treated as a kind of black comedy, the absence of likeable characters does not matter so much.
"Chicken soup - with a *beep* straw."
I'd say that's a fair view. They might be funny, but they're also awful people.
What we see and what we seem are but a dream. A dream within a dream.share
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Well, just a few minutes in, this thing seems INCREDIBLY obnoxious! It's like someone saw "Trainspotting" and thought that was the way to do this movie.
Luckily, it then turned into the standard, someone's dead, let's cover it up, keep the money, then everything goes wrong movie.
Shallow Grave was made before Trainspotting, by the same writer and director.
shareThe film does work. The characters are Cruel (the original title of the film) but they all have sympathetic qualities and at least one character is sympathetic to the audience at any one point, which was a clever device.
David was very sympathetic when he was morally tortured by their crime, and although he then goes insane, I cheered him on when he took out those gangster cunts. Alex started out sociopathic and carefree but gradually humanised as shit got increasingly real, and I rooted for him at the end because he screwed over Juliet, who had gone from pretty balanced early on to a conniving bitch.
Not that a movie necessarily needs sympathetic characters in order to be great. Every major character in Goodfelllas is a dick, some flat out murderers, yet we enjoy following their story and the film is an indisputable modern classic.