Reviews

I don't know that these people understand the term "atheism" or have unwittingly hijacked it to mean "against extremist religion" for there is not a lot, beyond personal and untrained anecdotal observation, to chew on in any academic sense. If you've ever heard Joseph Campbell speak on the subject, you'd realize how bush league and irresponsible this is. Atheism is now it's own market and has put these guys on the road to promote the film. Untold semiological crimes are being committed in the name of commerce and personal financial agendas, the first being the blurring of the term "atheism". These kinds of irresponsible broad releases can really backfire if the players don't have their terms and definitions in order and decline to include anyone who may have studied the subject seriously. Lots of books are being sold and our cultural philosophy is, once again, being determined by editors who are responsible for selling books and movies. Only this time, we are not modifying the definition of family, planting a product brand into our cultural consciousness or associating a core value with a car. We are talking about using a core belief (or unbelief) system potentially as a vehicle for something totally unrelated that will have many opportunities for adulteration and being re-fit to market along the way (like any brand.) None of these guys are saying much beyond a fairly surface polemic against an obviously delusional minority (I think they may be pumping the stats for their own ends as well.) Very hard to believe that half of the population does not understand or give any credence to the theory of evolution despite it's universal acceptance by all the major religions and it's instruction in faith based schools for more than half a century.

I would take their own advice and not believe everything you hear.

You really have to take into consideration the efforts made by the writer and director to drive home a basic, timeless theme regarding the protagonist and what vehicles they used to achieve this.

Firstly, this is a film primarily about integrity, chivalry in the classical, probably medieval, sense as most recently shaped by Sir Walter Scott in Ivanhoe.

Any film student will tell you that nothing appears by mistake in any part of any film.... everything is calculated to maximize communication of principle and idea i.e. a character coughs in Act I, has tuberculosis in Act 4, a character's special unique skill is highlighted early on to become key in a later plot line, etc.

That Roy Miller chooses a knight and that his name is Knight is key to understanding the character's motivation. What some might commonly term the exploitation of the icons of American exceptional-ism, this film attempts to take back as the classical verities that are the foundation of all just societies, most notably in the virtues and service one might find in the principles of membership for the round table (Not an American institution by the way. These guys were dead 500 years before Washington, the Alamo, and everything Americans ever did.) . This is not a typical soggy, sappy run at this idea (such as in Die Hard). This is a much cleverer and more intelligent effort and possibly an attempt to meet investors shoot 'em up guidelines and meet some artistic standard in the process.

This film is all inclusive and I'd venture to say it even includes Merlin (the kid who invents the battery, a sort of magic and like in the original story, possibly representative of human potential or potency. Merlin was also a seer of the future.) Wonderment is essential in the round table myth and formula and I think imperative if one were to fulfil the checklist of the psyche's requirements to achieve a level of meaning relevant to how the mind weaves together symbols within the framework of the story and the representation of a reality. All these elements are seamlessly and expertly inserted into the modern American idiom.

That everyone missed this tells me that not a lot of film critics know the craft of film at all and maybe are not qualified in the medium they make their living criticizing. All the elements mentioned are surely the reason this film, which nearly bombed it's first weekend, has found a 2nd, 3rd and fourth life (now having grossed 260 million world wide, a certified hit.) These are classic storytelling elements not in that they provide entertainment for it's own sake, but that they speak to perennially confirmed principles in a more detailed style than it's marketing would lead us to believe. Why the director and creative crew chose not to let everyone in on the game is anyone's guess. (Maybe they are all sick of explaining themselves.)

This is not Citizen Kane by any means and not really Oscar style stuff (was never meant to be) but is worth the time for several viewings when you take the above into consideration and certainly not worthy of the standard critic fodder heaped against it.

2 Thumbs up.

Pretty insulting bit of rehash of everything ever done in this genre from the lone/rogue agent looking to redeem himself to the one liners. There is nothing original about this film at all and it inadvertently seeks to re-write culture norms at every turn from stereo-typical tough guy attitudes to whining weak women. There was regular laughter in the theatre but not at places where the script called for it. Lame and unrealistic fight scenes really capped off this peristaltic outing and seemed to have been choreographed by the old west. Nothing is every truly ventured or risked either in the script, acting or content and pretty soon into the movie you realize you are watching a 2hr. ad for an upcoming video game. Fuquaa seemed to have his hands tied by either contractual obligation or the investor bean counters or both and didn't go off formula much at all. Valiant efforts by Eckhart, Butler and Morgan Freedman but not enough.

This genre should die before it and films like it take us all back to the bloody stone age.

There were a few concepts that are regularly delivered in thick spreads and contrivances by a cast, with the exception of Michael Caine, who are not up to the complexities of the subject matter. It actually looked like the actors themselves didn't really believe in what they were portraying and at odds internally with the ham handed, prejudicial and unreal aspects of the story ie. universal hypocrisy within the church and among ALL it's members, not an honest catholic to be found, all these people were sniveling hypocrites skulking around relying on the principle of absolution without remorse or recompense, atonement and it got a bit thick at times. There was a way to portray the seamier side of church behaviour and politics but this film didn't get it. It came off like a masturbatory exercise to be indulged by judgmental agnostics and atheists both on and off the screen and made to appeal to popularly held though not necessarily universally correct beliefs about religious organizations. Am not a church goer or a defender of catholicism by any means but this film got lost in popular mythology at the expense of the truth.

Again, not sure why this movie garnered so much attention but scared by the thought that it appealed to a large audience who might think the same way. People in this movie are unpleasant and ultimately ignorant,self absorbed and in pathetic and unsuccessful states of transition. They wend their way with very little to go on, running in the small circles the ignorant are condemned to run and hitting all the pitfalls and signposts of pathetic and denuded western material culture.(Falling in love will save me, success is paramount, etc, etc, etc.) Every item of existential dogma is trotted out in desperation by this screenplay and was very hard to stomach when it came from ALL characters, that no single character seemed to have had the basic wherewithal to speak plainly and from some depth or experience. Kaufman had decided that the whole world was as lost as he was and painted it that way. This is not realistic nor is it visionary or even clever. Nor should anyone be forced to watch. If unredemptive bleakness is an art form, then Kaufman has hit the mark. It bears all the hallmarks of serious addictive illness in the writer and would definitely make sense to the chemically dependent, which by the way is almost all of Hollywood and the voting members of the academy.

Script I think had more potential than how it was finally put together. Narrator was horrid and could certainly have been reconsidered or redone, less deadpan. He sounded like a male version of "Desperate Housewives" but not really pulling it off. This film also pretended to an insight it didn't really own and NONE of the characters were really likable. The film also relied on urban relationship myths quiet heavily, portraying them as gospel truth, and regularly founded flawed and unevolved insight on them, which was the real problem with this film. There are some highhanded hopes for in depth, truth revealing and crushing of delusions indicated in the direction of the early script but it's poor structure leaves the turning points under served, basically orphans. All in all, a depressing look at a depressing subject, unredeemed.

Know it is getting great reviews but did not like this film.

If you're a solid citizen with a firm belief in the rule of law, the important role and trust given to officers of that law, you will find this film arduous to watch from beginning to end. The lead character is a truly flawed personality so much so that he is oblivious to long standing police culture and glaring lessons of right and wrong played out daily as a part of his job. It is really the obverse of a "Butch Cassidy" theme and while the Stander gang become darlings of the press as the film evolves, their families, lives and states of mind deteriorate is a very short while (6 months) as they are absorbed into the twisted mind and perception of their leader, Andre Stander. It is a truly biblical ending "the wages of sin are death", and it is expertly brought out by the director. There was no glossing over or glamorizing of anything and no relief whatsoever from the glaring wrong/betrayal of trust perpetrated by Stander. You were simply unable to root for the bad guys in this film and could only standby as the inevitable pursuit and capture, and final lessons were affirmed.

A terrible beauty.

Not sure what genre this was supposed to be , possible an English "Airplane" but it utterly failed trying to be something, whatever it was trying to do. Farces use the truth much better than this film and weave it more expertly into it's meaning (like Airplane) . Continuity is a difficult thing to attain in a farce and usually the story will suffer as a result due to the failure in maintain a complex lineage of subtleties, the mark of a great farce. Also, delivery went overboard regularly to pump up the often flat dialogue. The script was intended for a different delivery when written and it seemed to take on a life of its own once the cameras started rolling and live people were added, probably far different from the writer's intent. Compared to some brilliant farces from England (eg. Withnail and I) this film relied heavily on common, barely laughable ancient and well-worn stereotypes (dumb country folk, inbred cousins, hypocritical evil religious people) to shore up a lame story and a favorite refuge for stuck writers with a contractual obligation hanging over their heads.

I think this film went overboard on authenticity with regard to culture of the 70's, right down to oppressive aspects of general thinking of that time and lack of openness. Had a really hard time liking any of the characters or caring what happened to them and there seemed to be a failed attempt to weave quirkiness into Gyllenhall's and Ruffalo's character that never really left the ground. (eg. animal crackers, etc.) Delivery was very flat and uninteresting, not to mention obvious mistakes/gaps in investigation that any ardent CSI viewer would pick up on in a flash. (ie. the guys aviation boots, shoe size. Relying on eye witness testimony over forensic evidence AND the complete lack of communication between departments while a killer is on a spree was hard to imagine.) Also, cutting this guy loose without a tail or someone following him blew me away. This film gave me a headache. Robert Downey junior seemed tied up and struggling in a sludgy environment and skillfully brought some creativity and life to the story without taking it over, which he could have done without thinking. He seemed to realize that to cross that line would really illustrate how flat things were with rest of the cast. Each player seemed tied to the lowest common denominator of delivery and feared rising above it for the sake of continuity.

Not sure why this film garnered so much attention.. it is an awkward weave of an old device (linking events around the globe in a "6 degrees" fashion) in an attempt to bind all players in a single bond of experience and humanity which it really fails to do. It's popularity I think was dependent on neophyte's first forays into cultural cosmopolitanism and the viewer's need to have a view affirmed in an artsy fashion, something they can point to and say they understand and gain membership in the "in" club of actual perception of the world. The wide open spaces pages left in dialog lend to this and minimal footnoting for understanding of each character. The story is also persistent in lack of commitment to individual characters. This is like a franchised art effort, stripped down to appeal to wide interpretation and pick up wind in all demographics. This movie will not be remembered or on the tongues of film buffs for very long.

Had a sense of disappointment in watching this film after all the hype the preceded it. It was clear what message was trying to be delivered but scenes and how this was done seem stammered and out of sync. I think the film failed in it's building of sympathy for lead characters, through lack of character development and history, an essential component if we are to take the internal journey with the character. We had a smattering of obvious signs of dysfunctionality, troubled brother, drug addicted grandfather, disfunctory and hurried family dinner etc., but nothing wanted me to actually care for these people at the start. We only really find out that Dwayne is a troubled stepson when he cracks and breaks his vow of silence. Before that, it is a presumptive footnote not explicitly addressed or really mentioned as a possible motive for his behavior and was not entirely sure who's son he was from what previous marriage. Which is a shame as his character was one of the most interesting and he never said a word for 3/4 of the film. This film also relied heavily on the compassionate powers of the viewer to fill in the emotional blank spots it was unable to put on film and regularly attempted to draw on this with long silences and superb shots in the absence of real dialog. Some great moments however this film will not stand the test of time nor make conversation in the coming years for these very reasons. All characters did pull it off however and played their roles expertly to the limit the script would allow for and we really see professionals earning their pay interpreting and adding value. Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette should be given an award of another type for pulling it out of the fire.

There is absolutely nothing original or appealing about this series and it's shameless ripoff of even minor plot points from other projects such as The Sting, not to mention complete story lines, is a disservice to the art form and art in general. If you're the kind of person who likes rechewing old ideas and are afraid of new ones or at least ones that have contextual moral and philosophical references to the age in which it is created, this is the show for you. Otherwise, if you are a true patron to the idea that art should challenge and be relevant even in entertainment, avoid this show entirely. The characters are wholly unlikeable and without depth, and don't begin to offer anything that I would want to investigate further. What some might call nostalgic in it's character, I call desperate to fill content with proved formulas and engineered scripting. The marketing concepts for this show were probably more further along than the story when this show first went into production.

Utterly without creative merit and a collection of shameless parotting.

Have read several reviews for this and am completely surprised by comparison made to Ghostbusters. This is a horrific movie with few redeeming values. The script regularly bends awkwardly to catch, continue or introduce story lines, standard themes like romance seem thrown in for formula's sake and carried horribly throughout. It will even resort to crotch hitting site gags and tried and true music sequences that are thrown in out of the blue and have no bearing on anything, to fill in large and I mean LARGE empty spaces. Also, the chemistry,heart and genius of the original Ghostbuster ensemble is nowhere to be found here. I find also that accuracy is imperative in whatever kind of story you are trying to tell and a comedy should not be given carte blanche simply because it is a comedy. I'm not expecting nano-tolerances on factual information but this film trounces all over basic expectations with regard to scientific procedure. A little more effort on this front would have added to the credibility of the humour. (This was definitely part of the magic of the original Ghostbusters, Egon Spengler's dead pan delivery of highly accurate scientific information added to the suspension of disbelief and was integral to the overall contrasting aspect and the movie's humour.)

This film also has a heavy reliance on cheap stereotyping (dumb cops, stiff military types, and fat-stupid rednecks), again to fill in the spaces. Laughing at someone being stupid is the lowest form of entertainment out there and the first tool of assembly line writers and directors. This looks really insulting to the skills and reputations of Duchovny and Moore often look like strange people in a strange land trying to carry this off.

When I read good reviews for this on IMDb, I have to wonder, are there people out there being paid to post good reviews? It would seem an excellent way to promote a film, disguising it in an honest forum and would reach enough people to keep the video rental numbers afloat for years.

This show really does not make the grade and am absolutely baffled as to why it is so popular. All the characters have immature and graspy personalities that couldn't carry a decent script if one did happen to come along. Is is just me or do these guys look like they'll be getting into fart jokes in the next few episodes out of desperation? Whomever chose these people must have the same defect in perceptual ability and was looking for like minded idiots to carry out his dim vision (or lack thereof). All characters/actors save for one, truly do not understand the basic principals of dramatic preparation or internalization, and this can really only come with life experience and intelligence. Also, nothing is ever actually resolved or stated in any meaningful way, humour is never delivered professionally, usually in a verbally or physically slapstick fashion and the good lines that do come along don't get the proper buildup. Eg. tonight's episode took a complex and common dynamic of relationships/rebounding and the audience was left to guess or chow down on a shitty ending offered up as resolution. There was no build up or honest reflection/character support footage that would make the ending stand up or barely any clue as to why the character might have reacted in this way at the end. TRULY BAFFLING and truly scary that it's high up on everyone's list.