MovieChat Forums > Shot in the Dark (2002) Discussion > This movie is awful and heres why

This movie is awful and heres why


Ok, so I started watching this movie at like 1 in the morning last night and i was so fascinated with the ever rising akward, awful, pain in the liver tension that the film produced that i not only watched the whole thing but i stayed up until 5 in the morning discussing it with my buddy. The section of the film where the father and son first meet and the only thing that the father can think to say is "Your tall, how tall are you, 6'2?" and then the camera pans over to the grandparents cringing without any visible emotion and to further escalate the "oh my god, i have to get out of here" feel to the film the next shot is them sitting ever so akwardly in a tiny boat with the father aimlessly fiddling with whatever that was in the back of the boat, as if they are actually going some where. and that is not enough so we see adrian blocking the physical distance between them with a big camera. But it did not stop there, no, it proceeded to show a host of scenes involving stereotypical male bonding scenarios in which they had set up. First it was off to the bowling alley of corse where the unibrow cameraman "friend" comensed to tryed to get the whole crowd of people that had collected in there to sing happy birthday to adrian. Though he succeeded in corralling a confused looking stranger family he failed in actually getting Adrians Father to sing a long, proloning what appears to be just neverending awkard scenes puncuated by either unibrow cameramn friend guy saying somthing grossly inappropriate or a shot of adrian smiling in what can only be described as the most pained look imaginable. The boom operator makes every miserable, uncomfortable situation that much worse. At the end of an akward night of fishing and bowling the friend Things dont end there as the movie reaches an almost climax, I use that term loosely as theres no real break in the monotonous drone of this movie but if this were a well crafted movie then this would have been the climax, when Adrian confronts his mother-in-law. His mother-in-law who had been responsible for driving the biggest wedge between Adrian and his father. It is an uncomfortable exchange between a neglected son and a spiteful *beep* hag consisting of the normal uncomfortable laughs and (...........................) The movie ends with with an unfathomably uncomfortable scene that is the only scripted sequence in the movie that consists of Adrian and his father having an exchange that in theory is suppose to be harshly funny but in the end seems to be the most honest scene of the movie. In summation there are many things wrong with this movie and its creator but the biggest has to be Adrian's misguided belief that this movie actually has some serious emotional guidance to offer to someone, one only has to look at his inspiration for the title of the movie to see he really doenst know what hes doing.

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i stopped reading here:
"theres no real break in the monotonous drone of this movie"
because there is no real break in that monotonous drone of a post.

The truth is out there...NORML.org

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Yeah, the monotony in your post was enough to put me to sleep. What you stated was a personal opinion, and at the IMDB we don't care about personal opinions. Keep it to yourself next time.

"Funny thing, killin' a man. You take away all he's got, and all he's ever gonna have."

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Well, now that we all know that you can't spell or make the distinction between a movie and a documentary, I can only make the assumption that you are some kind of snobby "I can do better critic" who has entirely too much time on his/her hands to appreciate the subject matter. I realize that was a VERY long sentence, but it was still much shorter than yours. PLEASE make another witty comment on that last point, so your obvious ignorance will be proven once again.

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That post was ridiculous. I mean do you understand how documentaries work? It's uhhh real. Are you seriously criticizing the stuff he did with his father? You are an idiot, who cares if what they did was stereotypical? It's not a movie, they did not plan everything out perfectly and say "oh this is clever, let's do this".

The kid has not seen his father in 18 years, I doubt he was really concerned with if his documentary was very subtle. It was a completely truthful story about someone finding their father, captured by a video camera. Maybe you didn't think it was great but it's REAL. It is not a movie. The only way you can criticize a documentary is to say it is subjective, uninteresting, or poorly made. This was none of those, and it was obviously pretty compelling if you watched the entire thing like you said. I mean if you didn't like it fine, but atleast know why you didn't and if it's at all important.

Your criticisms are akin to someone learning about Caesar, but claiming his death was cliche. It actually HAPPENED, how can it be cliche.

This may sound like jibberish to you, but I think im a tragedy

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[deleted]

More like a shot in the fart hahahhahahhaHAha-haHahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaHAha-haHahaha hahahahahahahahaha

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hahahahahaha

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How Old are you? Get a life why don't you. Why don't you tell us what kind of movies you make? Or is it just that you are jealous.

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I personally thought you made some good points. It's true Grenier really doesn't know what he's doing as a film maker and this film would have gotten zero attention if he hadn't already established himself on Entourage.

As far as your sentence structure goes I'm sure you were just trying to get your point across and didn't care that it wasn't a perfectly structured piece of literature.

The one issue I had is that when you are making a documentary and are searching for something that you don't know the conclusion it's hard to fabricate an exciting ending. You just have to hope it's interesting to an audience and unfortunately it lacked in that department.

He did work hard on this film and achieved his goal of finding and establishing a relationship with his father. Other than just abandoning the project because the conclusion wasn't incredibly exciting he edited the movie and finished it. I think that was a better choice than if he decided that the ending was weak and just burying the movie and all his hard work. In fairness to him he didn't know what the conclusion was going to be and boring or not he finished his project and got it out there for people to see.


I thought you were unfairly attacked for your comment and felt you made some valid points and had obviously thought it through but in the movies defense it did intrigue you enough to finish it, discuss it in detail with your friend and then write a lengthy post on it. So it did at the very least get you thinking, right?

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