Just finished watching this movie about 10 minutes ago on Netflix, and I want to write this out while it's fresh in my mind. It wasn't until a few minutes after the credits rolled that I began to consider what it was that I disliked about it.
The movie is well made. The photography, lighting, pacing, editing, and acting are all above average. This is a film maker who could make a stunning film with the right material.
The plot has been described by other reviews. A "businessman" with unspecified ties to the US government is kidnapped while in Europe on business. He is held in an unspecified place, charged with unspecified crimes, and tortured in a progressively brutal fashion. Whoever wrote this screenplay is obviously a devotee of Kafka.
The problem lies in the thematic content of the film, or actually, how the thematic content is expressed. The film embraces more or less three interlocking themes. They are:
First, the idea that everything is theater and entertainment to the masses, not just including the suffering of others, but *especially* the suffering of others. This theme is not original in an of itself. It's echoed in films embracing such diverse settings as the Roman Coliseum in Gladiator, or the tortured rantings of Howard Beal in Network.
Second, the observation that people will go to the worst, most barbaric extremes in service of an ideology or belief system to which they fanatically adhere. In his mind, the extremist believes he is morally justified in what he does. So what if he takes a man's eyes out with a spoon. His Enemy has done a million fold worse than this. This too is not entirely original but it is certainly a theme worth exploring.
Third, we have the theme of sin, penance, and redemption, either in a religious or secular humanistic sense (the two are depicted as parallel). This is where the trouble lies. By the end of this movie, this man has had practically everything taken away from him, his body being taken apart piece by piece. At this point, no one cares what the man has or hasn't done, whether he was truly sincere when he read his scripted apology to his neighbors when he stole from them as a child, whether his business dealings were black, white or grey. None of this matters because the over the top cruelty of his tormentors has rendered him a pure, unmitigated victim. We are horrified and sympathize with him entirely. His kidnappers are are psychopaths with no redeeming qualities.
This kind of simplistic emotional reaction from the viewer is less than a movie of this apparent thematic complexity suggests. This unending torture acts as a thematic bulldozer, causing everything else hinted at which may have been interesting about the movie to recede into the background. At the end, that's what you get, to feel pathos and nothing more.
Creating a good thematic mix in a film is like cooking. All ingredients in their proper portion. Overdo one ingredient and it overpowers the rest and produces an unsatisfying brew.
I recommend this to people who appreciate film-making for its craft, especially that done on a limited budget. For all others, well, you just read the review. Make up your own mind.
The movie is well made. The photography, lighting, pacing, editing, and acting are all above average. This is a film maker who could make a stunning film with the right material.
The plot has been described by other reviews. A "businessman" with unspecified ties to the US government is kidnapped while in Europe on business. He is held in an unspecified place, charged with unspecified crimes, and tortured in a progressively brutal fashion. Whoever wrote this screenplay is obviously a devotee of Kafka.
The problem lies in the thematic content of the film, or actually, how the thematic content is expressed. The film embraces more or less three interlocking themes. They are:
First, the idea that everything is theater and entertainment to the masses, not just including the suffering of others, but *especially* the suffering of others. This theme is not original in an of itself. It's echoed in films embracing such diverse settings as the Roman Coliseum in Gladiator, or the tortured rantings of Howard Beal in Network.
Second, the observation that people will go to the worst, most barbaric extremes in service of an ideology or belief system to which they fanatically adhere. In his mind, the extremist believes he is morally justified in what he does. So what if he takes a man's eyes out with a spoon. His Enemy has done a million fold worse than this. This too is not entirely original but it is certainly a theme worth exploring.
Third, we have the theme of sin, penance, and redemption, either in a religious or secular humanistic sense (the two are depicted as parallel). This is where the trouble lies. By the end of this movie, this man has had practically everything taken away from him, his body being taken apart piece by piece. At this point, no one cares what the man has or hasn't done, whether he was truly sincere when he read his scripted apology to his neighbors when he stole from them as a child, whether his business dealings were black, white or grey. None of this matters because the over the top cruelty of his tormentors has rendered him a pure, unmitigated victim. We are horrified and sympathize with him entirely. His kidnappers are are psychopaths with no redeeming qualities.
This kind of simplistic emotional reaction from the viewer is less than a movie of this apparent thematic complexity suggests. This unending torture acts as a thematic bulldozer, causing everything else hinted at which may have been interesting about the movie to recede into the background. At the end, that's what you get, to feel pathos and nothing more.
Creating a good thematic mix in a film is like cooking. All ingredients in their proper portion. Overdo one ingredient and it overpowers the rest and produces an unsatisfying brew.
I recommend this to people who appreciate film-making for its craft, especially that done on a limited budget. For all others, well, you just read the review. Make up your own mind.