Sorry, but a bad movie

I agree with you for pretty much all the same reasons. the movie was well acted and well directed but it seems to be missing a good hour of "plot/character develpment" and plain old explanation. the movie seemed very empty and while not boring or bad, i just didn't enjoy it anywhere near as much as the critics or the other posters here. i also would have enjoyed it more if will didn't kill malcom macdowell's character, but i understand why he did.

A couple of points:

1) The reason the old comrades stare each other down to start with is because they really are mortal enemies. Not in the sense you meant, but rather in that Will has turned away from the life that they represent. That gets reinforced when Will says to one of them, "no you're wrong...you're usually wrong about most things."

2) Rampling is pretty clearly not his mother, she states that she knew what he was and loved him anyway. A mother would have at least phrased it differently as in she knew what he had become but still loved him the same.

3) Davey was not a lowlife, at worst he was fringe euro-trash doing little more than making easy money dealing to the pretty and stupid people. He was more of an innocuous person coasting on his good lucks and affable personality than anything else.

4) McDowell's rape assistants -- who knows? I do kinda like the idea of them being car salesman out on a side job though, just keeping in practice for what they do to their customers in their day jobs...

Came here because I watched the film and couldn't make head nor tails out of the film. First, I adore almost all Brit films and second, I think I've seen nearly everything that Jonathan Rhys-Myers, Clive Owen, and Malcolm McDowell have ever done, so I'm a big fan. But the film was confusing. I like Charlotte Rampling, she was brilliant in "Swimming Pool" and nearly everything else she's ever touched but it was confusing seeing her with Clive Owen. It's probably wrong to assume that she couldn't be his girlfriend. Anyway, the "whys" of the film made more sense from one of the previous reviews here - like it was a much longer film that got cut down. It was too slowly and methodically paced to have an open "guess for yourself" ending. Maybe the project got too expensive and they had to wrap it up or someone's availability was suddenly cut short due to illness or another project. It was frustrating, though, because the cast was so terrific. Maybe Board had a kid who died from drugs and Davey was the easiest "villain" to punish? But without the rest of the film, lying on the cutting room floor somewhere, I suspect, we'll never know. A terrible waste.

I don't think you are missing anything, except that some people
like the style of the movie which is kind of macho, but not overyly
slick. I think the lack of coherence in the movie, and that is about
macho ganster types, yet the most violent person is not a gangster,
and the gangsters are kind of pathetic.

This is about the rape, that is it. It is about Will who left his
kid brother to fend for himself in the big city and he could not
handle it.

Seems that no one developed or went anywhere with their character.
Will was fun to watch, slow to talk, brooding, tough, and macho,
but it was a movie, and it went nowhere.

My point was that it leaves the whole questions of the rape right
front and center in your lap after the movie. I think this is to
get men to see rape for what it is, and not romanticize it as it
done in most movies or pornography.

What happened to Will at the end. Did he go back to his life or
crime. I think the indications are yet, but what would he become,
that is reason I think not, or that I think the movie just did not
compute.

Maybe I'm missing something, please let me know if so.

"It seems like you guys are in need of the usual Hollywood makeup. Why is that? I thought this movie was very well done and that many scenes did not need further explanation. Too many big-ticket blockbusters take the unnecessary steps to draw out each individual sequence until they become overexposed while the core of the movie rots right before your very eyes. This, I felt, is how films should be done, no *beep*"

CHUCH. A.K.A. I agree with you. You obviously have no taste in films if you say that the movie was "Awful" If you truely think the the story was off that does not ruin the entire film. Theres more to films than just the story. And to get back to that, I myself thought the story was fully devolped. As well as the characters. If you don't have the wit to figure somethings out on your own, don't come crying to everyone else that you didn't like the movie. Stay out of real theatres and go back to your huge cinemas, your obviously not fit to watch real movies.

"so who are the two thugs that accompany him on his dirty deed....car salesmen out on a side job"

You have the intelligence of a rock. He is a (what looks like) a multi-millionaire. They are BODY GAURDS or hired arms.


HEY EVERYONE! Another case of "I didn't understand it, so I don't like it"

i like this movie. The pacing was....mesmerizing. I was wishing there is another two hour long story. However, the ending was quite unsatisfactory.

My life isn't any better than yours.

I agree about Charlotte Rampling. I thought she was his mother during the first half of the movie, and then it turns out that she was the girlfried. I am also surprised that no one here has questioned the ending! After he shot Malcom McDowell, it shows Charlotte sitting on the stairs with a guy sitting above her with a gun. Did he kill her and is now waiting for Will to pick her up so he can kill him....OR...did Will figure that she was in on it and let her think he was coming so she could have a gunman there to kill him? Nevertheless, Will never went back. Very confusing ending. It may have been an ok movie if it didnt have the stupid ending.
Jerri

(This too is my first posting on this site) It's been funny to read so many others say exactly my sentiments - "I wanted to like this movie, I really did, and ultimately I found it disappointing." Its credentials were great, its premise was promising, and it's a British crime/psychological thriller. How could you go wrong? Many here have already echoed my own many disappointments. (yah, what WAS the point of that beating/urination scene?? "London scared me" "Yah it can do that" was a neat exchange, but - ? Nothing that came after lived up to that neatness) I'll just add, or paraphrase, my own. A few days after seeing it, almost nothing remains in my mind. The atmosphere was dark and ominous. But the characters in that atmosphere? Good grief. The only character I recall is the brothers' sidekick, who found David and reclaimed his budgie and consoled his landlady - those scenes I found somewhat moving. Ach there was such potential here!

As a woman I appreciated a different treatment of rape. But ultimately, for me, the movie was too many stretches of belief. A ton of them, but 3 stand out. I felt for the guy as he was raped, but I had to stretch to believe so many people loved him so deeply; I was given no reason to like him, let alone find him interesting. Maybe that was the point? So I stretched, and took their word for it. I had to stretch to believe Rampling's character would have been so in love with Will. Okay, okay, I'd be a sucker for a guy in an antique Jag who looks like Clive Owen. But as the movie kept reminding us, Will was also a vicious thug and killer, who'd had an entire neighborhood terrified. And this is a calm and sophisticated woman who owns a chi-chi restaurant? I stretched again and took their word for it. For me the movie by now was hanging on by a thread. The final stretch - Boad tails this guy, ominously, for hours, then rapes him - and it turns out simply because he's young and arrogant? Huh?? I don't think so! I guess the final, woefully lame scene in Boad's garage had already been set, by the psychiatrist - Boad has a small dick and is insecure. Sorry, but that's too little to hang an entire movie on....

In the end, I think the script is what needed a bullet to the head. Though full marks for trying.