Unintelligible dialogue

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It's not our fault (the world) that you are so stupid . If you don't understand spoken English like the rest of us do then ? You are stupid . Thats it .

That which does not Kill me makes me Stranger

I couldn't understand half of what was being said.

I HATE TO ADMIT IT BECAUSE I RESPECT THE NEED FOR AUTHENTICITY BUT I HAVE THIS PROBLEM WITH EVERY TOUGH GUY BRITISH FILM AND ALMOST EVERY IRISH FILM..aLTHO bRENDAN gLEESON i ALMOST ALWAYS GET AND OF COURSE THE GREAT BEN KINGSLEY

I LOVED HIS PERFORMANCE BUT I BARELY UNDERSTOOD A WORD KITTEN SAID BUT LIAM NEESON WAS FINE

DITTO FOR ALL THE SCENES IN FILMS THAT ARE SHOT IN THE DARK!!

Thank you for this post! and I thought I was the only one having problems with this. Truly irritating, indeed.

The DVD I watched had subtitles on this time. I borrowed it from my Library.
How come yours didnt? ...

I found the film excellent. I prefer non Hollywood films. I had no problem understanding the dialogue. I think you need to broaden your world a bit so you can understand people with accents different from your own.

What a moronic US-centric comment. Why do you assume anyone involved in the film even cares what the American audience think about it?

When you say "he," are you meaning Neil Jordan? How do you know he was responsible for whether or not subtitles were provided for this movie? The film industry is multi-faceted and controlled by large forces that we, as viewers, aren't usually aware of - like Distributors. I''d be VERY surprised if Neil Jordan had any say, either way, if subtitles were used or not for the film's distribution in America. American Distribution for English language films almost NEVER includes subtitled. Creating subtitles costs money, and European producers and/or American Distributors don't want to spend that money, and probably don't think there's any reason to, and surely they figure they would get little return on their investment, as films like this only have a small US audience. Also, while it may seem shocking to some people, not EVERY artist is looking for total, worldwide, commercial success - many artists are actually more concerned with creating a work of art that adheres to their vision.

In America, our movie industry is controlled by large studios that take a HUGE amount of profits for distribution, even so called "independent films" are dependent on the distribution systems developed and controlled by these studios. Plus, Directors simply aren't in control of EVERY facet of production, pre-production may start without them, post production may not include them (this is when subtitles would be added) - even hands on production isn't always in their hands - the 2nd unit Directors are the ones who make the final decisions about their shots, and while audiences may have this fantasy they're taking instructions from the Director and following them to a T, that isn't always so, and once something is shot, it's prohibitively costly to re-shoot. Then there's the editing process, and "test audience" reactions; American films are made to appeal to a VERY large and diverse country, so usually they get watered down to pablum so they go down easily everywhere.

Things are different in Europe, regional filmmakers have opportunities to make small budget movies, aimed at smaller audiences, in small countries. Neil Jordan and his European Producers and Production Studio may not have cared whether Americans could understand the film, because they didn't think it'd be distributed widely in America. The filmmakers made a film about a certain region of the world, they wanted it to sound and feel authentic, and they created it for a specific audience in mind, and tho it may seem shocking to US, that audience may not have included the whole of America. It's distribution here was probably aimed at a small set of Americans interested in these kinds of movies.