I love Christian's work with all of my heart. Especially his weird/creepy stuff like American Psycho.. but with this movie, it felt like a lot of the lines were forced. Especially at the beginning when they were talking about going to get drugs and stuff, it just sounded fake to me. It got better towards the end, but I have to say I was fairly disappointed in Christian's decision to not only do the script, but fund the movie as well.
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I actually think it has something to do with the fact that Christian Bale is a white guy and he's talking like an Hispanic in LA. I honestly think he did a great job and comes off as natural, but an audience has a hard time digesting it when we know how white Bale really is, English accent and all.
That said, I do find some of his lines amusing, but not because they're unnatural, exactly, but because his character (though well played) is so ridiculous at times. Such as in lines like this: "I wanna get fuuuu cked uuuuuup..."
http://ablueballoon.blogspot.com/
Bad,bad film.....Bale was strugling to find his character in this,hence why he seemed soooo false as a guy from the hood hanging wif the homies,however when he went into solider mode he was rather convincing,guess Bale is not the best actor doing a cliche american stuck in the hood film as his accent was poooooh!!.....yup awfull film cannot understand the high rating?????
shareYou need to understand Bale's character Jim. He was a loner and also a lost soul who can only connect to his friends. The reason Bale pushed the character to that point of him being/sounding fake is because he was presenting to the viewing audience a character who was uneasy of being his true self. You could call Jim somewhat Bipolar/Schizophrenic. Why do you think after Jim did the polygraph and went in to talk to the admins about it they called him failing the polygraph is him being "deceptive". Also, they didnt even want to shake his hand because in their mind he cannot be trusted.
shareThere are definitely white dudes in LA who talk like this.
I thought this was one of his best performances ever, and truly excellent movie.
I know many people have commented they thought his character seemed fake. I dunno what to say, there are white dudes who talk like this and it's not an affectation.
hmmmm....sounds like we have a tropic thunder moment here:
christian bale is a british dude, playing an american dude, playing a hispanic dude
hmmmm....sounds like we have a tropic thunder moment here:
christian bale is a british dude, playing an american dude, playing a hispanic dude.
Lol, that's pretty hilarious. It was difficult to get past Jim's "accent" the first viewing, but the second, third, fourth time etc, I understood where Bale was going with his character. He really didn't know how to be himself, and I think that's why he would turn off the "barrio" talk and turn it on when he wanted. I honestly think he truly hated himself, probably for all the nasty things he did while in the Middle East, so he was a man with some serious identity issues.
shareGood call. And Jim probably liked Huey Lewis And The News too.
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I think that was the whole idea...to make the lines seem forced. Haven't you ever met a white guy who tries to sound black or hispanic? It sounds very forced and unnatural but these people do exist. I think bale did a great job of sounding like a person who was trying too hard to talk like someone that he wasn't. His persona changes when he interacts with the gov't people. This is proof that his character is a guy who is a follower and adjusts himself to the people he is around.
shareforced??? nobody grew up hood here? im a white boy who came up around the cholo thing. bale's character was perfect. he nailed it to a t...i could swore that was my uncle on the screen. as for the "white boy fake accent" its forced sounding if your from the burbs, but when you grow up in the environment the accent...its natural like breathing. it sounded forced when he went into "white mode" which i think was pivotal part of the character. the solider was the act, and the homeboy was his true self.
its my favorite bale movie hands down. freddie was sick too.
Wot are you 5??
yeah forced!!...like i said bad bad film.
"Wot are you 5?? "
i don't get?
i responed like an adult with reasoning.
and this is the attiude/response i get?
im not johnny spellinggrammarton, so im not even going to touch that.
but "bad bad film" is baby baby talk.
im giving you my point of view, you dont agree thats fine.
but if your going to be an internet tough guy
dont look like a sand filled pv55y by typeing stuff like...
"Wot are you 5??
yeah forced!!...like i said bad bad film."
you fv<king hunk of 5h1t.
the homeboy being his true self is probably the greatest thing I've heard said about this film. I was wondering if anyone else would notice that and mention it. Xihux13, you are probably one of the few people that actually gets this movie. I'm Hispanic, and when I started watching the film, I will agree that because I know how Bale really speaks, it thew me off for a second. But a couple of minutes into watching it, I thought to myself, damn this guy is really pulling that accent off! He's freakin awesome! Even when he was speaking Spanish it sounded really good. Christian Bale may be the greatest actor ever.........
shareyup agreed, xihux is bang on
one of my favorite bale films by far
"...8 year olds, dude..." -Walter , The Big Lebowski (1998)
He gets it. And of course nobody grew up in the hood here
shareKinda like William Forsythe in American Me.
share"It sounds very forced and unnatural but these people do exist. I think bale did a great job of sounding like a person who was trying too hard to talk like someone that he wasn't."
How was he trying to talk like someone he wasn't? If you grew up in East LA and your best friend was Latino and most of the people you hang out with and dated were Latinos I don't know how you couldn't be influenced by the culture. It would seem more unnatural to not be.
@jamesrullan
I found Bale's performance to be on point---like someone else said, he nailed that character! Here in Detroit, I've heard white/Latino/Arab folks that have grown up in the city who sound and act EXACTLY like Bale's character---they're the norm here--see them all the time. That's what white/other non-white folks who have actually grown up in all-black urban areas sound like---there wasn't one fake thing about his accent---it sounded totally for real. In fact, watching him and Freddy Rodriguez (as his friend) when they were both talking s*** was hilarious/fun as hell, and that alone (along with the mess they were trying to pull, and that scene where Jim whips out his gun on the gangstas that have been coming after him, and hollers, "Freeze,b****!"---that was one of my favorite scenes in the whole movie!) made the film worth watching for me.
Basically, Bale's a very good character actor who became a star--and that's why he's so intriguing to watch as an actor, because you never know what he's going to do next---he definitely created another memorable character to watch here.
The movie excellent , and has many awesome scenes. If you guys are complaining about the accent. Then I have something to tell you , psss listen
NO ONE GIVES A *beep*
I'm a huge Bale fan, but his crying at the end of this movie made me cringe so badly...I couldn't take it seriously.
shareBale wasn't portraying someone that was an authentic person. His character was an unstable person that had no idea who he was, so he faked it in every environment. He was fake at the job interviews, fake around his friends and fake as a drug dealer. Bale nailed the role. People just probably didn't like his character. He wasn't there to be Christian Bale or Batman or Patrick Bateman. He was there to be a mentally unstable vet that's addicted to danger, needs his friends to validate him, and fakes his way through life trying to be who he thinks others expect him to be.
His crying at the end made sense given the circumstances. He wasn't able to do anything else.
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I agree. At first it was a little hard to take Christian Bale's accent and the way he delivered his lines... especially when he first meets Mike and says stuff like, "It was a dream homie! Loving my woman!" ...didn't sound natural (and I know wiggers like him so I'm used to the dialect). But Bale has enough charisma that he can pull almost any role off and luckily this was one of them. By halfway through the film he sounded totally legit.
sharedon't doubt the bale. maybe's he's not so bad as doing accents, maybe you're misunderstanding the point of the movie.
sharedon't doubt the bale. maybe's he's not so bad as doing accents, maybe you're misunderstanding the point of the movie.
sharedon't doubt the bale. maybe's he's not so bad as doing accents, maybe you're misunderstanding the point of the movie.
shareI love Bale and I think he really pulled off the character, accent, dialogue and all.
I was honestly laughing throughout the first half of the film because it hit so close to home and he reminded me of the men in my life. Same with Freddy's character. Just such a real movie, the writer really knew what he was writing about and the actors delivered that perfectly.
Funniest...Movie....Ever. Bale as a wankster was hilarious. Maybe for the sequel they could get Hugh Grant or Colin Firth to play his hip-hop, gangbanger brother from another mother, Chico. LOL!
shareSpeak for yourselves, this specific movie made me a Christian Bale fan because of his character portrayal... the guy is a great actor. The general audience might not understand the context of a troubled white guy raised in a Mexican neighborhood. The Mexican subculture rubs off even on white people. Ive seen it first hand. White kids that grow up in the hood assimilate to either Mexican/hispanic, or Black culture because its what they are exposed to. The same can be said for black, hispanic, and asian kids that grow up in the suburbs and sound "fake" because they have flat nasally accents and over emphasize the enunciation of words.
In my experience in middle & High School, the Wigger, always got made fun of... alienating themselves further. On the other hand, white kids acting Hispanic were more socially accepted in these all-Hispanic schools. They intermingled slightly better, and a few were even part Mexican or related to them.
It may be hard for some of you to believe, but there are/were some working class white families that coexisted with the occupying minorities. At least that's how it was when I was growing up. This is why I was even more fascinated by this movie. Bale's character acts "white" whenever its convenient for him, and he realizes that being white in situations (like finding a job w/ the DEA) is an advantage. When he's w/ his childhood friend he starts acting ghetto w/ a cholo accent because that was the dichotomy of his upbringing.
I understand why a lot of people dislike this movie. Its difficult to relate and understand these characters.
However, I can see that Bale has mastered being a *beep* thespian. His accent and dialect are spot on.
cccl350, no idea why you would write so intelligently for paragraphs, and then come out with "occupying minorities" near the end. That is some ugly bias you show us all.
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