MovieChat Forums > Ben X (2007) Discussion > Absolutely terrible

Absolutely terrible


What was the purpose of it? Is this some kind of tolerance education for primitive people?

This is absolutely beyond me. And don't reply and call me insensitive or whatever. This movie, if you can even call it a "movie", is not made by the rules of what we call Fiction. It is just some cheap manipulations with images, trying to make the viewer totally uncomfortable, and without actual story.

Seriously, this movie, with it's heavy religious references and preaching message of Christian morality, is one of the worst I've seen.
And I've seen a lot. Just for reference, I saw not that long ago another Belgian movie from 2007 - Ex Drummer, and I found it amazing.



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I agree completely. I couldn't get into this film at all, it seemed to me that cheap editing gimmicks, an utter lack of narrative flow and the awful punctuation of 'documentary' type scenes ruined an already pretty confused storyline. I kept on questioning why I was watching it and not switching off, and I came to no conclusion. It brought to mind other European film that employed funny little editing techniques to there advantage (Run Lola Run, Amelie, Goodbye Lenin!, to name a few) but it was way too weak a film to rely on the idea as a means to fortify the piece. Man, it really was bad, the ending just kills me. I can't understand how it gets such a high rating, answers on a postcard please.

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Captain Murphy: Way to go Sparks, you broke the monitor and you're dead. Happy?

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To be honest, I liked the starting a lot. I liked how it was realistic, I liked how it was filmed, and I thought it was engaging and interesting.

At some point, I realized that the film couldn't be concluded without:

A. disappointing the audience or
B. being meaningless (to me anyway)

They chose B. You can argue that the ending makes the statement "reality is relative" or something along those lines but I thought the movie took the easy way out.

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The ending was somewhat disappointing, but everything before that was great. Still gave it a 9.

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What ruined the movie for me is that Ben is supposed to be a teenager, but looked like he was 30 years old. I would have better sympathized with Ben if he looked like some young guy who's getting picked on, than some old guy who could kick my ass.

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At some points I saw Ben as old, but at other points could pass for late teens, early twenties. I liked the movie too. Also I find it funny that dbhowar657 says Ben looks 30 and then in the next sentence calls him an old guy.

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I was working 1 year with children suffering of asperger syndrome and autism in Romania. Here we don;t have any culture about this disorders but I NEVER saw people acting so cruel with them! If here people are acting human, I dare to guess that in US is much better. I's so dramatic this movie that at one point I feel sick. You know... a little moderation in everything and maybe it will come closer to ,,good taste,,. This movie let me with an acute ,,bad taste,,.

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If you have never seen human cruelty, then you might want to have yourself checked for blindness...

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What you fail to realise is that it is not 'Fiction' but dramtised Fact. The movie is based on the novel written by the director which in turn is based on the actual events of a boy who killed himself after suffering extreme bullying. I am sorry that you find it so intollerable however this is life, as it actually is. Raw and real and painful.

The story is the discomfort, the manipulation. The director is trying to get you to feel what he felt. Although the end if pure fiction, what precedes it is pure fact. People are tormented for being different, people are pushed towards the edge of oblivion every day. The directors intent was to let you into the mind of this boy so that you can maybe have some empathy for someone like him if you happen to come across him in the future.

Maybe you said it best, maybe you are just insensitive.

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Really? For me, this movie was possibly one of the best I've seen in a while.

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