If you'll indulge me. The year is 2012, Christoper Nolan launches the third installment of the most lucrative batman series in the history of motion pictures with "The dark knight rises" The movie is well executed but for me something was missing. The movie was big but it outgrew its own story.
No, I didn't forget which movie I'm commenting on, I am merely saying what you and Nolan already know. A movie might benefit from A list actors or lavish CGI but it has to have a great idea.
Someone who is short of a great idea is "The young men", an "aspiring" writer. His dull existence render his stories unwritten. In his despair, he stoops to stalking random strangers. After a brief research, he stumbles on Cobb, a burglar who looks like a suave businessman but enjoys the thrill of violating the holy privacy of complete strangers.
His quirky observations lure The young man to a series of break-ins that are pointless and hopelessly addictive. The young men gets ideas and adrenaline rushes, Cobb sketches mental drawings of his victims by rummaging in their belongings. We soon find out that Cobb analyzes first and foremost his new companion. brimming with newly found confidence, The young man starts to date a stand-offish (Lucy Russell) who is never clear about her past and almost always reluctant to talk about it. Her agenda, we later learn, has ulterior motives. The young man is about to find out what is the game he serves as a pawn in and decides to take actions. I can't tell much more than I already have but I could point out that there's a reason why none of the pieces in chess is capable of moving itself.
Nolan, who wrote, shot and directed "Following" back in 1998, could have made over 35,000 "Following" movies with the budget it took him to do just one "The dark knight rises" and I'd choose the former over the latter any day of the week.
Those who are familiar with Nolan's work, can already recognize time- galloping narrative, the shrewd analysis of everyday life and the multi layered stories that above anything else, show how much effort and thought were put by Nolan. This movie has fewer actors, less lavish settings and even less colors (black and white, mostly) than every single movie he made since, but the story is there and all the rest become technicalities.
One of these technicalities will be the acting. aside from Alex Haw (the Cobb), the actors didn't leave a lasting impression, the fighting scenes are clumsily edited and the the demented love triangle is, well, out of shape. Nolan always had a flair for well constructed story telling but, if I may be a little vein and make outrageous assumptions, Nolan is not the kind of director who will never let an actor adhere from the character envisioned by Nolan himself and this movie, like many more of his works, suffered (slightly) for that.
More than it is an indicator to any of my traits, this overly-analyzing movie review is proof of the one common quality in all great movies have: It makes you think about them long after the credits.
Probably more than anything else, this movie is a display of raw brilliance of a fledgling British director that will become the icon of highly acclaimed and unfathomably lucrative Hollywood movies.
I think the kid's got potential.
9 out of 10 in my FilmOmeter
No, I didn't forget which movie I'm commenting on, I am merely saying what you and Nolan already know. A movie might benefit from A list actors or lavish CGI but it has to have a great idea.
Someone who is short of a great idea is "The young men", an "aspiring" writer. His dull existence render his stories unwritten. In his despair, he stoops to stalking random strangers. After a brief research, he stumbles on Cobb, a burglar who looks like a suave businessman but enjoys the thrill of violating the holy privacy of complete strangers.
His quirky observations lure The young man to a series of break-ins that are pointless and hopelessly addictive. The young men gets ideas and adrenaline rushes, Cobb sketches mental drawings of his victims by rummaging in their belongings. We soon find out that Cobb analyzes first and foremost his new companion. brimming with newly found confidence, The young man starts to date a stand-offish (Lucy Russell) who is never clear about her past and almost always reluctant to talk about it. Her agenda, we later learn, has ulterior motives. The young man is about to find out what is the game he serves as a pawn in and decides to take actions. I can't tell much more than I already have but I could point out that there's a reason why none of the pieces in chess is capable of moving itself.
Nolan, who wrote, shot and directed "Following" back in 1998, could have made over 35,000 "Following" movies with the budget it took him to do just one "The dark knight rises" and I'd choose the former over the latter any day of the week.
Those who are familiar with Nolan's work, can already recognize time- galloping narrative, the shrewd analysis of everyday life and the multi layered stories that above anything else, show how much effort and thought were put by Nolan. This movie has fewer actors, less lavish settings and even less colors (black and white, mostly) than every single movie he made since, but the story is there and all the rest become technicalities.
One of these technicalities will be the acting. aside from Alex Haw (the Cobb), the actors didn't leave a lasting impression, the fighting scenes are clumsily edited and the the demented love triangle is, well, out of shape. Nolan always had a flair for well constructed story telling but, if I may be a little vein and make outrageous assumptions, Nolan is not the kind of director who will never let an actor adhere from the character envisioned by Nolan himself and this movie, like many more of his works, suffered (slightly) for that.
More than it is an indicator to any of my traits, this overly-analyzing movie review is proof of the one common quality in all great movies have: It makes you think about them long after the credits.
Probably more than anything else, this movie is a display of raw brilliance of a fledgling British director that will become the icon of highly acclaimed and unfathomably lucrative Hollywood movies.
I think the kid's got potential.
9 out of 10 in my FilmOmeter