Well done for what it is but what it is yet another story about Norman Bates, except he's French now. Norman, Jeffrey Dahmer, Pierre, Gacy, and most jihadists suffer apparently from bad childhood traumas of some kind. NOT!!!! They are born missing key ingredients for being considered human. Something is left out, some piece of the brain (for we are only animals with no souls). We've all me someone in our travels we felt uncomfortable around who made the small hairs on the back of our heads stand up at attention. When that happens pay attention and run!! The female interest in this is your typical dumb blond (only she's brunette but probably was blond as a child). She is onto something in the beginning but lets her vagina do the walking through the Yellow Pages. Just like men who think with their penises, some women do that. They'll fall in love with cons in prison or write to them just to have beaus. It's a strange world and when you go to bed at night, double lock your doors. I'd stop speaking to strangers also. One never knows, the killer could be a member of your family. They play nicey nicey and then when you're not paying attention kill the family pet or even yourself. Serial killers are pretty predictable just like serial masturbaters or polygamists.
2 Reviews
Funny games.
ulicknormanowen5 March 2023
"Cruel" had big ambitions: to renew the serial killer with a very precise depiction of the murderer's milieu :and from that point of view , it can be considered a successful movie: the scenes with the bookseller who looks as though he already has on foot in the grave ,the simple but wise house help and the disabled father ring true. Maurice Poli ,an actor who enjoyed a small reputation both in France and in Italy ,finds his final part here :and it takes a lot of guts to portray such a human wreck , probably after a stroke. A legume ,nothing more .The house help suggests he be taken to a home for retired people but the son does not want to hear of it ,because he would be be alone in his house .
Actually ,he is not alone ; there's always a captive in the basement;probably bearing a grudge to the whole world, he takes his revenge by killing his fellow men with cruelty (check the title) : he asks them why he should release them, if they have a true reason to live; "this is the last picture you'll see of your child" he says while showing an X ray of a foetus (his baby);on the other hand , the "rules" ,a la "transporter " get in the way.
The depiction of the lugubrious suburban life with not the slightest hope is sight provides a good background, but it's not all good news. The appearance of Laure,the educated artist who falls head over heels for this not-very-handsome crude man is not very plausible ; their romance scenes, enhanced by a syrupy music , seem to have been taken by force from a Claude Lelouch movie ; the uncle, an ex-boxer , is not very credible either;and the interminable cop's speech gets on one's nerves. The last third of the movie is a big disappointment ,being bland and preposterous .
Maybe the killer had found the treasure of the book he reads night after night to his bedridden daddy; of course the childhood trauma is present :he "killed" his mom who died in childbirth ; but if it is so,why this nostalgia for the golden years ,for these pictures of fun at sea as a child , for the old draftbooks .
This movie is a curate's egg.
Actually ,he is not alone ; there's always a captive in the basement;probably bearing a grudge to the whole world, he takes his revenge by killing his fellow men with cruelty (check the title) : he asks them why he should release them, if they have a true reason to live; "this is the last picture you'll see of your child" he says while showing an X ray of a foetus (his baby);on the other hand , the "rules" ,a la "transporter " get in the way.
The depiction of the lugubrious suburban life with not the slightest hope is sight provides a good background, but it's not all good news. The appearance of Laure,the educated artist who falls head over heels for this not-very-handsome crude man is not very plausible ; their romance scenes, enhanced by a syrupy music , seem to have been taken by force from a Claude Lelouch movie ; the uncle, an ex-boxer , is not very credible either;and the interminable cop's speech gets on one's nerves. The last third of the movie is a big disappointment ,being bland and preposterous .
Maybe the killer had found the treasure of the book he reads night after night to his bedridden daddy; of course the childhood trauma is present :he "killed" his mom who died in childbirth ; but if it is so,why this nostalgia for the golden years ,for these pictures of fun at sea as a child , for the old draftbooks .
This movie is a curate's egg.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
