... or how to destroy your own movie trying to be inventive (and fail).
It goes like this: If you want to watch this movie (which is 2 hours long) in 50 minutes, all you need to do is watch the first 40 minutes, then fast forward to minute 110 and watch for 5 minutes when a "revelation" happens, and if you really want to have "closure", fast forward to when the credits begin to roll (ignore the dedication, it's way too pretentious).
Normally, I don't comment on movies I hate, why waste time, right? But this one is different because it bothers me that IT COULD HAVE BEEN GOOD in the hands of a real director, not a spoiled baby like this moron from Mexico.
The acting is what you can expect from Penn and Watts, very good. Even Del Toro, who I normally don't like, gives an excellent performance, despite the flaws in his character's script.
But why, oh why, did Gonzalez (the "director") choose to try and "pull a Tarantino" again like he tried (and also failed) before in "Amores Perros". Can someone please explain to him that the way he edited the movie looks like a freaking 2 hours long trailer of a movie that we actually may want to see? In the first 40 minutes you know 98% of what the whole movie is about. There's only the question of "Who shot Paul in the end?". That amounts to the missing 1% of the movie, and the other 1% of the movie is the "revelation" that happens in the 110th minute, which I already mentioned.
Why would I care for Jacks struggle with his conscience if I already know that he will make it to the end of the movie without killing himself? Why would I care for Paul's wife's strange desire to have his child if I already know that he will end up with Cristina? ... Wait! Do you think I'm spoiling the movie here for you? No! You can see all that in the very first few minutes!
Most of the movie you spend it having this mental exercise of trying to identify if this 30 second scene belongs before of after what you just have seen. Its fun, believe me, but it does NOTHING for the movie.
Tarantino KNEW how to do it with his Pulp Fiction. Nolan PERFECTED this kind of weird narrative. But when Tarantino decided to go for it as a kind of imaginative and innovative way; and Nolan used his backwards narrative with the justification of getting us into the characters reality and the way he perceived his world (which IMHO is the best example of how to get the audience INTO the movie); this idiot apparently wanted to do it JUST BECAUSE! There is NO justification for ruining a perfectly linear story of life, death, sin, and redemption, with these cheap gimmicks of "pseudo-cinematography".
But don't get me wrong, the story itself is not so great either; I'm just saying that it would have been "not so bad" if they would have treated differently. There are too many senseless sub-plots to consider it a good story, especially when you get to know who shot Paul (that was plainly ridiculous).
Tell you what, rent any Jennifer Lopez movie, stick it into your DVD player, and play it with the "shuffle" function on, and you'll get an Alejandro González Iñárritu movie.
Then you won't have to mourn for all the wasted talent of real actors.
It goes like this: If you want to watch this movie (which is 2 hours long) in 50 minutes, all you need to do is watch the first 40 minutes, then fast forward to minute 110 and watch for 5 minutes when a "revelation" happens, and if you really want to have "closure", fast forward to when the credits begin to roll (ignore the dedication, it's way too pretentious).
Normally, I don't comment on movies I hate, why waste time, right? But this one is different because it bothers me that IT COULD HAVE BEEN GOOD in the hands of a real director, not a spoiled baby like this moron from Mexico.
The acting is what you can expect from Penn and Watts, very good. Even Del Toro, who I normally don't like, gives an excellent performance, despite the flaws in his character's script.
But why, oh why, did Gonzalez (the "director") choose to try and "pull a Tarantino" again like he tried (and also failed) before in "Amores Perros". Can someone please explain to him that the way he edited the movie looks like a freaking 2 hours long trailer of a movie that we actually may want to see? In the first 40 minutes you know 98% of what the whole movie is about. There's only the question of "Who shot Paul in the end?". That amounts to the missing 1% of the movie, and the other 1% of the movie is the "revelation" that happens in the 110th minute, which I already mentioned.
Why would I care for Jacks struggle with his conscience if I already know that he will make it to the end of the movie without killing himself? Why would I care for Paul's wife's strange desire to have his child if I already know that he will end up with Cristina? ... Wait! Do you think I'm spoiling the movie here for you? No! You can see all that in the very first few minutes!
Most of the movie you spend it having this mental exercise of trying to identify if this 30 second scene belongs before of after what you just have seen. Its fun, believe me, but it does NOTHING for the movie.
Tarantino KNEW how to do it with his Pulp Fiction. Nolan PERFECTED this kind of weird narrative. But when Tarantino decided to go for it as a kind of imaginative and innovative way; and Nolan used his backwards narrative with the justification of getting us into the characters reality and the way he perceived his world (which IMHO is the best example of how to get the audience INTO the movie); this idiot apparently wanted to do it JUST BECAUSE! There is NO justification for ruining a perfectly linear story of life, death, sin, and redemption, with these cheap gimmicks of "pseudo-cinematography".
But don't get me wrong, the story itself is not so great either; I'm just saying that it would have been "not so bad" if they would have treated differently. There are too many senseless sub-plots to consider it a good story, especially when you get to know who shot Paul (that was plainly ridiculous).
Tell you what, rent any Jennifer Lopez movie, stick it into your DVD player, and play it with the "shuffle" function on, and you'll get an Alejandro González Iñárritu movie.
Then you won't have to mourn for all the wasted talent of real actors.