Reviews

This film is hard to watch for many reasons. First, it is a 3 hour silent film. That alone is a feat for some. Also, the content is very distasteful to modern audiences. The film is about the founding of the KKK and it endorses every terrible stereotype and racist attitude you can think of about black people in the south. And the white northerners are certainly portrayed in a bad light as well. Its as if this film was made during Reconstruction and just released in 1915.

On the other hand, this is an important thing to see for those who are lovers of film history. To my knowledge, it is the first feature film and it is certainly interesting to see these racial attitudes so blatantly displayed in a mainstream film. But it is certainly not for the casual viewer. I love movies and history and I could not watch this all at once. A 3 hour silent film, especially with this content, was just took much at once but I think it is something every film lover should see at least once if for no other reason than to understand the history of film.

I saw the Jazz Singer because I love movies and the history of movies. For this reason alone, the film is worth seeing. It is the first sound film after all so if the history of films interests you then see this one as a sort of intellectual exercise. But otherwise, I didn't think this film was very good. It wasn't horrible but definitely below average. Although, I think this is at least partly due to the fact that the film is an odd combination of sound and silence. The songs are sung by the performers and are audible but the rest of the movie is silent as if the director was told he had to use some sound. So that was distracting. If you have seen a silent film before then you know that you have to watch it differently than you do a sound film. And I found it difficult and annoying to have to constantly switch back and forth between sound and no sound. But for film lovers this is certainly worth seeing at least to understand that sound in film sure didn't happen all at once.

This movie has some very good action especially at the house and in the church at the end and chow yun fat is also good, however this is in no way John woo's best movie. many parts of this movie are downright boring. The heavy action and the boring elements make this movie almost even out. The action alone makes me want to give this an 8 out of ten but the boring parts take that down to a 6 out of 10. The problem is not the action, john woo is the master of action but he needs to learn to direct the parts of the movie that don't have action. Hard-boiled has action all the way and is very good because of this. The point is that John woo should either make action or drama and not try to mix them. When he does we get this mess of a movie that despite all the hype almost makes you fall asleep.

i could go on and on about how awful and stupid and completely sick this movie is but i can only write 1,000 words. i gave this movie a 1 out of 10 vote i wish they would let me give it a zero. it deserves much worse than a 1.