A relatively interesting movie until it implodes at the exact same time when the bus explodes.
An inventor (Gordon) loses his parents in a car-crash, and then spends the next two years working on a device that would show direct images from Heaven. Realizing that he is the only one who can see images of Heaven on the screen (while others see only static), he flips his lid and decides to "hijack" a bus, with its elderly passengers being willing participants in the sham. The bus explodes after a cop shoots at it (duh), killing the inventor and everyone else in it. His girlfriend, the beautiful and stunning and sexy Amanda Plummer, under shock, goes to his flat to take a look at his invention one final time; but again she sees nothing on the screen. However, the last scene shows her leaving the town, with a wide grin on her face. Did she see Gordon i.e. Heaven on the screen, after all?
Or did she simply lose her mind, too? Or was she smiling because she had thought of a very funny joke, perhaps? Or maybe she couldn't believe her "luck" for having a movie career? Nothing would surprise me; she does play a very ditsy character, after all. In fact, Plummer is much like that other nepotistic semi-amateur, Melanie Griffith, in the sense that both are totally limited to playing dim-witted, goofy-voiced women with three brain-cells. And even that they can't do particularly well.
So was Gordon out of his gourd or did he actually see something on his device which for some reason others couldn't? To me, that isn't the most pressing question here. The real dilemma here concerns whether the writer/director has all his marbles or not: why the Hell would anyone cast Amanda Plummer as anyone's love-interest??? She is one of the most extreme examples of Hollywood nepotism gone wild, along with others such as Anjelica Huston, Laura Dern and others.
I thought it was daft from the director to get Gordon to tell Plummer that she is "the total opposite of crazy". That was intended as a compliment, not only from Gordon by the director as well (i.e. it was intended sans the irony), but what it implies instead is that she is utterly boring and common. Duh.
"Static" is a fairly original movie with solid dialogues and an unusual story-line. The basic premise had (or still has) great potential. Where it all comes tumbling down, however, is the ending with the bus exploding. With Gordon buying a bus-ticket "Static" enters "goofy-comedy" territory, and yet just as it does that, it suddenly gives us this totally bizarre, out-of-the-blue, absurd tragic event which in no way, shape, or form fits into this movie. It is quite obvious that the director had written himself into a dead end, a blind alley, a corner, clueless as to how to wrap up the proceedings. So like any amateur writer desperate to finally complete his script, he tacked on a totally preposterous, over-the-top, idiotic explosion. "Hey, an explosion kills nearly everyone, so my movie can end, right?" Yes, that is correct, Sunshine, the explosion does solve your problem, but it also RUINS your movie.
Besides, it made zero sense for any of the cops to shoot at the bus as it started moving without getting the all-clear from the sheriff, and without even having a pressing reason to do so. (Or have you perhaps ever heard of an American hijack situation involving dozens of hostages, in which the cops have the go-ahead to blindly shoot at the vehicle in question as soon as it starts moving? I haven't). Not to mention the moronic ease with which the bus explodes, as if it had been DRENCHED with highly inflammable liquids from all sides, as if it had been meticulously and intentionally prepared by the company that runs these buses to explode like a bad guy from a "Die Hard" movie.
What is it with movies and their bombastically exploding vehicles? If cars and buses really exploded as easy as they do in movies, there would be millions dead in road accidents throughout the world every month. Given that "Static" is an indie movie – the type of films that are supposed to relieve us from all the usual Hollywood cliché bull – it is doubly shameful that the writer/director resorted to such a cheap plot-device. (And he could have saved some money in that shoe-string budget of his by not having to shoot an explosion.)
Perhaps if someone neutral had proof-read the script before pre-production started, then the cretinous ending would have been re-written and we would have had a good film on our hands. As it is, "Static" is just another great premise that peters out due to a lack of imagination on the writer's part.
Gordon invites his friends and their KIDS to the grand presentation of his invention. Why anyone with more than half a brain-cell would actually risk having 3 young kids endanger his presentation – or the device itself – is beyond me. That was a stupid touch. In the end, the kids and their monster masks end up on the movie's poster. Why?
The director, Romanek, seems to be over-idealized and worshiped by many "art-crowd" film-goers apparently for the simply reason that "Static" came out early, before indie films reached their qualitative peak in the 90s, gradually being mass-produced, eventually dropping in quality, becoming just as hopeless as the Hollywood films they allegedly wanted to stray from. I think these people tend to (sub)consciously ignore the movie's obvious flaws, and to greatly exaggerate its positive sides. Romanek cast Keira Knightly in his latest movie, and had spend decades working on trashy MTV videos for the likes of Madonna and Michael Jackson. Not exactly the resume of a brilliant film-maker.
An inventor (Gordon) loses his parents in a car-crash, and then spends the next two years working on a device that would show direct images from Heaven. Realizing that he is the only one who can see images of Heaven on the screen (while others see only static), he flips his lid and decides to "hijack" a bus, with its elderly passengers being willing participants in the sham. The bus explodes after a cop shoots at it (duh), killing the inventor and everyone else in it. His girlfriend, the beautiful and stunning and sexy Amanda Plummer, under shock, goes to his flat to take a look at his invention one final time; but again she sees nothing on the screen. However, the last scene shows her leaving the town, with a wide grin on her face. Did she see Gordon i.e. Heaven on the screen, after all?
Or did she simply lose her mind, too? Or was she smiling because she had thought of a very funny joke, perhaps? Or maybe she couldn't believe her "luck" for having a movie career? Nothing would surprise me; she does play a very ditsy character, after all. In fact, Plummer is much like that other nepotistic semi-amateur, Melanie Griffith, in the sense that both are totally limited to playing dim-witted, goofy-voiced women with three brain-cells. And even that they can't do particularly well.
So was Gordon out of his gourd or did he actually see something on his device which for some reason others couldn't? To me, that isn't the most pressing question here. The real dilemma here concerns whether the writer/director has all his marbles or not: why the Hell would anyone cast Amanda Plummer as anyone's love-interest??? She is one of the most extreme examples of Hollywood nepotism gone wild, along with others such as Anjelica Huston, Laura Dern and others.
I thought it was daft from the director to get Gordon to tell Plummer that she is "the total opposite of crazy". That was intended as a compliment, not only from Gordon by the director as well (i.e. it was intended sans the irony), but what it implies instead is that she is utterly boring and common. Duh.
"Static" is a fairly original movie with solid dialogues and an unusual story-line. The basic premise had (or still has) great potential. Where it all comes tumbling down, however, is the ending with the bus exploding. With Gordon buying a bus-ticket "Static" enters "goofy-comedy" territory, and yet just as it does that, it suddenly gives us this totally bizarre, out-of-the-blue, absurd tragic event which in no way, shape, or form fits into this movie. It is quite obvious that the director had written himself into a dead end, a blind alley, a corner, clueless as to how to wrap up the proceedings. So like any amateur writer desperate to finally complete his script, he tacked on a totally preposterous, over-the-top, idiotic explosion. "Hey, an explosion kills nearly everyone, so my movie can end, right?" Yes, that is correct, Sunshine, the explosion does solve your problem, but it also RUINS your movie.
Besides, it made zero sense for any of the cops to shoot at the bus as it started moving without getting the all-clear from the sheriff, and without even having a pressing reason to do so. (Or have you perhaps ever heard of an American hijack situation involving dozens of hostages, in which the cops have the go-ahead to blindly shoot at the vehicle in question as soon as it starts moving? I haven't). Not to mention the moronic ease with which the bus explodes, as if it had been DRENCHED with highly inflammable liquids from all sides, as if it had been meticulously and intentionally prepared by the company that runs these buses to explode like a bad guy from a "Die Hard" movie.
What is it with movies and their bombastically exploding vehicles? If cars and buses really exploded as easy as they do in movies, there would be millions dead in road accidents throughout the world every month. Given that "Static" is an indie movie – the type of films that are supposed to relieve us from all the usual Hollywood cliché bull – it is doubly shameful that the writer/director resorted to such a cheap plot-device. (And he could have saved some money in that shoe-string budget of his by not having to shoot an explosion.)
Perhaps if someone neutral had proof-read the script before pre-production started, then the cretinous ending would have been re-written and we would have had a good film on our hands. As it is, "Static" is just another great premise that peters out due to a lack of imagination on the writer's part.
Gordon invites his friends and their KIDS to the grand presentation of his invention. Why anyone with more than half a brain-cell would actually risk having 3 young kids endanger his presentation – or the device itself – is beyond me. That was a stupid touch. In the end, the kids and their monster masks end up on the movie's poster. Why?
The director, Romanek, seems to be over-idealized and worshiped by many "art-crowd" film-goers apparently for the simply reason that "Static" came out early, before indie films reached their qualitative peak in the 90s, gradually being mass-produced, eventually dropping in quality, becoming just as hopeless as the Hollywood films they allegedly wanted to stray from. I think these people tend to (sub)consciously ignore the movie's obvious flaws, and to greatly exaggerate its positive sides. Romanek cast Keira Knightly in his latest movie, and had spend decades working on trashy MTV videos for the likes of Madonna and Michael Jackson. Not exactly the resume of a brilliant film-maker.