This movie had serious potential. It's filmed in Georgia and the scenery is amazing. You also have three obviously interesting characters but you don't ever get to know them. In fact, I didn't even know their names until I went on to IMDb. Because you don't know anything about the two main characters (other than some tidbits revealed near the *end* of the movie) it's hard to care about them. Are they grad students? Are they American? Why do they like to travel... hell, WHY are they in Georgia? There's no story here. This is why I say the film is pretentious. The people who made the film assume that you can care about the characters without knowing anything about their story. The film is also about half Georgian/ half English with NO subtitles. Now, I get why the filmmakers may have done this. They want you to be as clueless as the two main people when the "misunderstanding" occurs. The problem herein is again, the filmmaker assuming you care enough about their story to *not* be frustrated by the fact you aren't getting any of the dialog. The two main actors speak some Georgian so they know more than we do. They are getting some of what is going on. There's also some Spanish thrown in just for kicks. Your head spins. Like mine did when I found out this was supposed to be a thriller! Huh? If you want an actual thriller about a misunderstanding that happens in this region of the world, watch "Transsiberian". I would also like to point out there are at least two instances where you have the camera pan out and you are forced to watch the characters slowly walk from one side of your screen to the other. If this is a character study, you can observe as much about human emotion by sitting on a bench at the mall on a Saturday afternoon.
Review of The Loneliest Planet
