Reviews

That was the sage advice given to John Cusack's Roy in Stephen Frear's excellent THE GRIFTERS. Nicholas Cage's Roy in the pale comparison MATCHSTICK MEN wasn't taught this, apparently, and pays for it.

Without repeating the film's setup, I want ask "Why was this movie made"? After Frear's GRIFTERS and Mamet's HOUSE of GAMES (along with his other con films) what was Ridley Scott thinking in offering up this extremely slight piece? He adds nothing to the genre, and though loaded with entertaining performances by Cage, Sam Rockwell (as Cage's partner Frank) and Alison Lohman (as Cage's long-lost daughter Angela), the film goes nowhere with these unbelievable characters.

SPOILERS!!!

Ultimately nowhere, that is, after bait-and-switching us with a long con carried out on Cage by his "partner" and his "daughter" (and a few other fakes). Early in the film Cage tells Frank "I never work the long con". It's hard to accept that Cage's Roy could work the shortest of con's, so I wasn't surprised when he fell for Frank's bait.

The phony baloney feelgood ending--in which the now broke Roy finds respectability as a carpet salesman (where he chance meets his "daughter" again as a customer, with a totally unbelievable live-and-let-live response) and finds love with his local supermarket checkout lady--makes the eyes roll.

Contrast this silly film with THE GRIFTERS believably wicked characters and dark, bitter ending. Again, Ridley, WHY DID YOU MAKE THIS MOVIE?

I'm a pretty gullible filmgoer, demonstrated here as I fell completely into Michael Haneke's trap: browsing the foreign section of Blockbuster, I picked up FUNNY GAMES and was seduced by the words "See it if you dare!" and "Makes NATURAL BORN KILLERS look like ORDINARY PEOPLE" (or something like that).

If Haneke wants to shame me for this, fine. All it proves is that, like millions of other movie buffs, I was bored on a Friday night and wanted to see something exciting. Contra Haneke, I was not wanting to see a family tormented cruelly and mercilessly by a pair of twits in tennis whites and gloves, as if that kind of scenario truly, secretly titillates me.

No. What I will admit to wanting is to see the family turn the tables on their attackers and expedite their damnation. Buh-bye Beavis and Butthead! That's what I wanted.

Haneke is the one who should be ashamed, since he denies his audience catharsis, even pretends he doesn't understand the classic concept just so he can make his narrow argument to a niche audience of pychopaths.

But I fell for his trap, and what he did achieve is a truly frightening vision of a world without hope or justice, only evil in charge.

*****SPOILERS*****

Haneke says "If you leave the cinema you don't need (FUNNY GAMES); if you stay you do." Well, after the precious little boy is murdered I stopped the film. You just don't DO that in a movie! (Not that I think the child's psychological torture was appropriate either.) I don't care if it happened off-screen, since Haneke doesn't need blood and guts to ply his theme (he is a brilliant director, actually).

The aftermath of this scene was reminiscent of the subway scene in Haneke's later CODE INCONNU (which was my first Haneke film, a wonderful film, and yet a source of warning to me before I rented FUNNY GAMES that a thriller by Haneke would potentially be very disturbing). In that scene Juliette Binoche is verbally taunted by a couple of young Muslims, and Haneke just turns the screws of discomfort as the kid thugs cause all but one passenger to cower.

An old man, he confronts them and they leave, but not without a final "Boo!" just to scare Binoche. She cries tears of release and says "Merci" to her only defender, and that scene was just so poignant to me. I felt the same of the parents in FUNNY GAMES as they just sit there in a catatonic state after their child is blown away with a shotgun (and the killers have left). What can they do but slowly come to, and try to get out? They can't deal with their loss just now. Yet the father slowly begins to gasp for breath and gradually a crescendo of grief builds up and he just flat out sobs violently.

THAT, my friends, moved me and proves to me I don't need FUNNY GAMES. I cared about this family-silly me!-and the last thing I wanted to see was their one-by-one murders. I couldn't watch the movie after that, only fast-forward through clenched fingers in search of some hope. (Ironically, I missed the "rewind scene" as I fast-forwarded! Ha!)

I found no hope. In the end even the foreshadowed potential of hope in a dropped knife is cruelly taken away as the last victim (the mother) is casually tossed off the boat to drown (she was bound and gagged).

Folks, THAT is evil, and Haneke couldn't be more distorted in thinking that audiences go to thrillers to see the kind of hopeless degradation he portrayed in FUNNY GAMES.

All said, I do admire Haneke as a director and respect his ability to disturb. CODE INCONNU is a film of his I could recommend to anybody who can handle "boring" (but rich) films; FUNNY GAMES is a film I refuse to recommend to anyone.