TimOuw Reviews

Bushwick (2017)

Not disappointing, but...

[7/10 · 21 February 2023]

Somewhat likeable characters, extreme long shots over long distances with a considerable amount of stand-ins in the style of Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity, Children of Men), forgettable music, lenghty scenes of medical procedures, a very unlikely plot, unrealistic and actually pretty bad gunfights, I can go on with a summary like this but let's just break it down!

Story, 5 out of 10

This story is clearly a message about an increasing group of people in the United States which wants to form their own state, free from the "liberals" in Washington. Alledgedly a militant group tries to occupy a neighborhood in New York to setup a base. Then, using insurgency, they will terrorize all societal structures in order to force the US government to acknowledge a free southern state. Like a new American Civil War. It is good for a game like Far Cry 5, but here in this film it is not conveyed strong enough to make it palpable. Only some shots of TV anchors on the news and an explanation given by the captured operator. Too many flaws. Supposedly the militant group chooses a neigborhood with a lot of "diversity" because the inhabitants wouldn't give much opposition. Maybe they wouldn't care at all. That is very implausible. But a fiction story doesn't need to be plausible, however, it needs elements to make it palpable to the viewer and there was just not enough content. I didn't care at all about the story, I just wanted to see whether Stupe and Lucy would make it out of there. The story was a letdown for me but it didn't bother me much.

Acting, 7 out of 10

The acting was slightly above average. I was annoyed a lot by the acting of the character Lucy who just lost her finger but after that scene never showed any more signs of pain, or at least some form of discomfort. Instead, on numerous occasions she pulls Stupe back with the injured hand or she grabs other stuff without even a reflex of pain. The lost finger is just forgotten about. This also shows bad direction and poor control of continuity. There might be another reason for this which I will come back to in the next section. I liked the acting of the character Stupe and I only knew this actor from one of the Chronicles of Riddick films so I enjoyed to see him again. His acting was not all that bad, and his end monologue where he gets emotional was done well. For me, he carried the film. The rest of the actors where not really significant. The extravagant sister of the protagonist had some potential but her character was never developed. Some moments in the film were really funny and a couple of times I cracked up. For instance, the scene with the mother of this gang leader.

Cinematography, 9 out of 10

A lot of use of the steadycam but also cranes and maybe even a drone. A very beatiful opening scene where you see New York from the sky, but seemingly from an angle never shown in any film before. Extremely long takes where the camera starts, for instance, in a room in a building and you follow the whole situation to out on the streets where multiple stand-ins run around, explosions, passing cars all take place in one shot. There is a review over here stating the entire film is taken in one shot. Actually this is far from the case. Yes, there are extremely long shots, but there are always points where there is a cut using transition plug ins: When they enter a building the camera zooms in on a dark wall, stays a moment, and pans back to the scene. In reality there is a cut. There are also some hard cuts visible, strangely on not very notable moments in the film. I didn't see a reason to stop making the illusion that it's all one cut. For instance in the introduction scene of Lucy's sister. As the film is shot in these extreme long shots I am convinced they kept a lot of continuity errors in the film out of necessity. Probably not enough budget, hence, time to shoot all over again over some small mistakes made by the actors. Because of the technique of long shots with disguised edits I soon enough was experiencing the construction which killed immersion for me. But, willing to set this aside I think the camerawork in this film is absolutely nailing it. Highly skilled, best you can get.

Music, 7 out of 10

The music was mostly modern electronic instrumental sounding with a lot of emphasis on 16th notes in the rhythms. Fast Hi-Hat patterns with staccato distorted guitar sounds combined with military sounding percussion blasts. In short: What you'd expect. Nothing to be surprised about. Nothing really new. However, well produced, effective and not too overdone. Forgettable, though. I mentioned Riddick before: I can sing you right now the theme of Pitch Black by David Twohy, while that film is 23 years old.

Sound, 8 out of 10

The film contains a lot of dialogue from different distances, a lot of explotions and chaos and the sound is mostly recorded on set. Only the explosions and other kinetic elements are probably dubbed over. You watch the film and take for granted what you hear and that is a good sign for a sound designer.

Conclusion

Despite the flaws I detected and the lack of immersion caused by the apparent construction of each shot I was entertained enough and the film didn't disappoint me. I wouldn't really watch it again, maybe only to even analize more how they took these long shots.

Based on this summary a good 7.2, Slightly above average.

Containment (I) (2015)

Now THIS is a real lockdown

[8/10 · 3 January 2022]

I love low budget films, I love apocalyptic films, I love dystopian films, and I love Science Fiction. I also don't like to have expectations when starting a film and I must say, I enjoyed it. I also find a lot of these reviews over here lacking respect for filmmakers and actors. As far as I am concerned, al these low ratings are derived from people with a lack of understanding of the process of making a film, a lack of any artistic imagination, and a dissapointment due to simplistic expectations and a rough disposition towards filmmakers. I think it is a shame. The film should at least have a 6.

Lets break it down.

Story, 7 out of 10

Of course, films about contagion are out there in huge amounts. However, most of the time these films depict the unfolding of these events on a global scale or contain zombies. This film conveys a story from a much more intimate point of view. It did not seem unbelievable and I was gripped by it. I found the dialogue interesting enough to keep me immersed and see what was going to happen. During the start of the COVID-19 pandemic there were similar situations in Wuhan reported. Also, there seems to be some dystopian view conveyed how people live in these impersonal tower blocks, being reduced to small tribes. This film can be easily added to the rest of the films about contagion.

Acting, 8 out of 10

Despite of some of these reviews over here I found the acting pretty sufficient and well done. Some might think some of the actions of the characters are questionable but in fact that can be easily debated. Most of the abberant behaviour came from Sergei who clearly had emotional and anger issues. The fact that he made holes in the walls to reach his neighbors might be wayward, but is in fact a nice little way to bring the cast together. The way he treated Hazel was somewhat extreme, however, he saw her as the enemy. He finds his fate soon after. They don't try to break the windows because at first they all think the threat is coming from outside. The acting was convincing enough to me and I was immersed the whole time. The protagonist, Mark, an unsuccessful artist, played his role good. It was never overdone or underwhelming. He reminded me of Robert Maitland, a recurring character in books by J. G. Ballard.

Cinematography, 9 out of 10

A lot of camera shooting out of hand when needed. Well done shots and frames in tight spaces. Very well done lighting. Absolutely beautiful shots of the Highrise blocks which reminded me of the book Highrise by J. G. Ballard. Good close-ups of the characters showing their sweat and expressions. I found the camerawork and editting very well done. I also read in a review over here that there was nothing shocking. I totally disagree. The beating of one Hazmat guy with the bat, and the death of Sally and Hazel were quite chilling for me, as for the shootings of some tenants on the ground floor.

Music, 8 out of 10

Absolutely a good produced score which conveyed the dystopian feel and the urgency at the moments needed. It added absolutely to the eerie situations. Long, low sounding drones and the use of tribal percussion sections fitted well, as the tenants actually changed in some sort of tribalism. The music sounded nice, the subtitle music was amazing, well done.

Sound, 8 out of 10

The sound was great. Slamming of doors echoing through hallways, the dampened sounds when the actors are in their rooms, the sound of the violence, the muffled sounds of stuff happening in the corridors and so on added to the scary stuff the characters were dealing with. It seems that only the gunshots were done in postproduction, but most of the sounds and the dialogue was recorded on set and sounds very well.

If you are a fan of low budget films and, like me, have watched dozens of films with a 100 times more budget and which just felt overdone and dull in the end, don't let this pass. I think it was suprisingly good. Well done.

The Worthy (2016)

Depressing, filled with redundant violence, yet intriguing

[6/10 · 15 June 2021]

I gave this film a 6 because of it's beautiful cinematographics and the location where it is shot. I found the acting adequate and the film has some integrity. I also find Arabic a beautiful language and I understand some. The film was incredibly atmospheric and I don't regret the viewing. However, the plot is flawed and I don't like the conveyed message at all. On top of this it is packed with awful mistakes made by the characters and thus the director/writer. Let me elaborate.

The film starts with a truckdriver, who turns out to be the initial protagonist, giving a man a lift. A voiceover tells that this man is some kind of prophet or visionary. A feel of desolation and a post-apocalyptic setting is conveyed, which I love, and during the first ten minutes we are introduced to a group of people living in some sort of gated compound, an old destroyed factory, trying to survive the ordeal of a world where the water supply is contaminated. They are then visited by a drifter played by Ali Suliman, who also plays a Taliban member in 'Lone Survivor'. He holds a woman hostage with a chain attached to her, it is clear he uses her as some kind of bargaining tool. Under cover by his son with a scoped rifle with merely three bullets, the leader of the good guys opens the gate with the incentive to help the woman. He offers to give the drifter some gallons of water in exchange for the woman. However, during the negotiations the drifter slits her throat suddenly, awfully graphic on screen.

Why would the drifter do that? She dies for no reason. She is also the most beautyful woman in the film. Obviously she was his cover and bargaining tool. Or was he so desperate to get water in a frenzy? Would it not be better to just coöperate? He is covered by some dude in the back with a modern looking crossbow. The guy misses an arrow and gets shot by the good guy with the scoped rifle. Suddenly there is a third guy throwing a knife like a ninja hitting the drifters neck, one foot away from our good guy. He get's shot too, but only in his shoulder and it doesn't seem to do anything while it is 7.62 ammo. Yeah right. This third guy, named Mussa, explains he actually aimed for the drifter, which is totally inconceivable because the leader and the drifter where brawling. He could have hit any of the two. The leader of the group stays somewhat reluctant to trust Mussa, but his son insists he saved his fathers live and they need to be let in. And so it goes. Furthermore, nobody thinks of picking up the crossbow, while it is clearly a great asset for the group. Who writes this stuff? This is in the first ten minutes!

It is soon clear that the real acting performance is done by the bad guy Mussa, played by Samer Ismael, but he only appears for like 10 minutes in the entire film. A huge letdown! Mussa is accompanied by a girl, presumably his girlfriend or wife, but it is clear that she is really elusive and uncomfortable. For me it was apparent that she is not to be trusted and that they have a pact. She is introduced as being Kurdisch and doesn't speak Arabic and in that way she stays mysterious. We are introduced to the characters, sitting at a campfire. They all found refuge in an old plane factory and tell what they did in their former lives. I found them all likable but it is soon clear that they are all way to weak to survive in this harsh reality surrounded by crazy people. Inundated by surprise and naïvety, the leader of the group is stabbed to death by Mussa and a psychotic killing sequence is started what will fill most part of the film. It is, however, way to predictable.

The son is now the protagonist. People die in most horrible ways and it is all filmed quite clear. The guy Mussa destroys their water supply by rigging the water tower, killing one man and crippling another. The booby traps, made with makeshift grenades were unbelievable to me. The crippled guy, actually the best friend of the protagonist and the illicit lover of the protagonists sister, gets his leg amputated but we never hear from him again when they later leave to find another water supply. The whole sequence where his leg gets amputated is pointless. His character is not developed at all. On top of this, with the exception of a couple of shots, the characters never seemed thirsty, while that is the whole premise of the film.

We are confronted with a character who seemed like the more 'intelligent' person because he is shown while reading books, sitting by himself, but suddenly he starts to perform mutiny. He is then banished by the group, only to be found later in a basement, entangled in a strange and contrived trap where he is hanged by his wrists, his tongue removed and his shoes filled glass. Why would Mussa do that? Why go through all that ordeal to create traps like that, with no water and no real means to survive longer than a couple of days? The protagonist then KILLS the banished guy by suffocating him, ending his misery. Yet it seemed like a drastic measure and surprised me. It's a human being after all and his injuries were not lethal. While doing this they leave the hatch to the basement open while Mussa is at large. How stupid can you be? It's almost like they all deserved to die. Of course, Mussa closes the hatch, trapping them. Because of this another woman dies in agony while she is burned to death. This is where I had to look away, it was just too violent for no reason. The special effects were quite good but the violence is totally redundant.

The film moves to the finale where all the good guys but the protagonist and the sister of the protagonist are dead. And of course Mussa is lurking somewhere. The sister, Maryam, a driven and brave woman, is balancing on an old wing of a plane, another trap created by Mussa. When the wing tips over to one side she will be hanged. The rope around her neck is in fact barbed wire, adding to the horror of this film. The cable is way up in the air and you can't see the ceiling. How could Mussa create this trap in so little time? We get to see a balancing act while the boss fight takes place but Mussa is on the winning hand. Seeing this, the sister commits suicide. The whole trap is therefore pointless! It is anticlimactic in the worst sense! Mussa is then shot by a flare-gun and he burns to death. This time we see NOTHING as opposed to the horrible deaths of good, likable characters. Really?

So, in order to understand the point of this film you think: Oke, Mussa is just a psychopath, right? All his killing was senseless. After all, he destroyed their water tower deliberately so it wasn't power or water he was after.

It gets better! Or worse!

His elusive kurdish girl turns out to be some kind of superstrong special forces babe, suddenly hitting and overpowering the protagonist and telling the kicker: She and Mussa were both some kind of scouts for a group in Medina, trying to 'repair' mankind by killing off the weak persons. She literally says that. So they go trough all this ordeal to psychotically KILL all these likeable innocents because they are WEAK? I literally said out loud: I don't like this message at all... She then carves what appears to be their branding of some sort in his neck, telling him he needs to come to Medina to join their group: She let's him live because as far as she's concerned he is the strongest person deserving to live, WHILE UNDER HIS COMMAND EVERYBODY DIED??? Obviously I noticed all the religious names of the characters and the intended allegory but it all felt empty to me.

Then you think the film is finished but we witness the protagonist start his journey to Medina. He then 'coincidentally' meets the prophet we see in the beginning and the film tries to put some kind of symbolism and philosophical notions in the last minutes.

It fails. For me at least.

Resuming my rating: A generous and actually too high 6/10 because of great cinematography, good looking effects, a nice location, reasonable integrity from the actors and a nice palpable atmosphere. But in essence packed with flaws.

Follow Me (2020)

They all deserved to die

[6/10 · 17 February 2021]

Mundane characters, stupid behaviour, predictable plot and ending, contrived puzzles, bad writing, mediocre acting, low budget sets, forgettable music, the list goes on.

From the moment you see Coles friend starting to die you already know there is a twist coming up. The film doesn't have the horror quality where characters just die off in an anticlimactic way. When one of the executioners just JUMPS into an elevator shaft, taking down Thomas but will surely die in the process, it is very clear it is all a setup.

The ending is so stupid. Why would you try to top "The Game" by David Fincher? It is not possible, just a stupid rip off. And it is so stupid he just crashes the skull of Alexei with just a revolver in just 10 seconds.

A bit entertaining, waiting to see what the ending will be, but I don't think this film is really good.

The Beyond (2017)

Only for hardcore scifi freaks

[6/10 · 3 January 2021]

What occured to me watching this film towards the end is that the process of film making is really, really expensive. Obvioulsy this film is made with a low budget and that might be the Achilles Heel. You just need a lot, A LOT of money to pull this off. And that is what these producers lacked.

Despite this fact, the film contains everything for some good, cold, atmospheric science fiction. The actors, all unknown to me, showed genuine integrity. I think it is really ambitious to make and work on a project like this. There was pretty believable CGI and other animations, the music was cold and objective and the overall atmosphere felt good to me. The spacesuits were impressive and the locations and control rooms felt good enough. I liked the European, old age scientist a lot. The documentary style worked for me, the interviews looked genuine enough. The Alien Spheres were beautifully made, and made me think of Arrival. Of course, you have to resign to the fact that it is going to be a low budget film, sit back and get into this story.

And, looking through the low budget feel some disappointment started to creep in. Some unnecessary scenes what felt like a redundant filler. The interviews of the international crew to go into the Human 2.0 project which was never developed. The death of the first candidate felt overdone. As if the director wanted to put some more emotion in the story, but it felt padded to me. It started to be a lot of talking but no footage.

Also, the appearance of another Earth which was named Earth 2, felt like a direct steal from the film Another Earth, where they call the new planet also Earth 2. This was an enormous letdown for me and made me drop the film in rating one point.

On the other hand, the ending message that Human Kind is full of flaws but always in search for eternity, and the chance offered by the aliens to create a new civilisation was nice. A premise to the bulk of science fiction out there of course. Films, novels, video games.

The film lacked too much because of the low budget. Scenes of the riots on Earth, footage from beyond the Void and other notable things such as roadblocks by the army were just not sufficient enough. But, as an absolute science fiction freak, also reading all novels I can get my hands on, I encourage every film maker out there to keep making these films. These are not for the popcorn couch viewers, but for the more serious science fiction freaks out there.

If you are a science fiction fan it is absolutely not a title to avoid. My rating was a 7/10 because of the integrity of the project and cast, but it dropped to 6/10 because of the plagiarism of Another Earth by Mike Cahill and Brit Marling, which I rated 9/10! (It might not be plagiarism but I doubt this director and crew haven't seen Another Earth. Everyone out there should watch Another Earth. Now THAT is a film of different calibre)

Time Trap (2017)

Nice scifi concept, but awful cast and badly written

[6/10 · 16 August 2020]

The concept of a group of people trapped in a location where time stops to function normally is cool. But the actors in this film are so mundane, you don't care at all about them. The film is written so bad. I also don't understand there are actually two directors. The characters are introduced so quick you don't get to know them at all. Why bring two kids along and have such a burden? It's just awfull, so much potential wasted.

Some revelations where epic, like the girl (I don't even remember their names) climbing up only finding a barren world and discovering the space station. Or the still shot where you see some kind of battle for this fountain of youth. or when they discover that it's not days going by, but seisons. However, this is not conveyed at all by the characters. It seems they were casted for some student project. There is no drama at all. It is just acted so bad.

The ending is just a blatant mind trick. Oh yeah, they are in the future on this space ship and are launched to Mars, or whatever, leaving this strange cave behind. No conversations, no urge to have some answers what the heck happened. No trauma they just lost their entire lives, oh well, it is fun up here in the year 4000 or whatever. Why would these aliens save them, whats the point? The ending felt like a cheap TV show, needing a sequel. The teacher finds his family.

And oh: Let's just leave the cave people behind to die.

The lighting and cinematography was also bad. No suspense at all. The music. Meh... I appreciate the orchestral score (made by digital fake instruments) but it just did not do the work properly. No suspense. The music sounded more like a cheap action film.

I wanted to give this a 5, but I give it a 6 because the concept is cool and I am a kind person.

2:22 (2017)

I am touched. And I will tell you why.

[8/10 · 3 July 2020]

First of all, I am a genuine science fiction fan and read everything, from J.G. Ballard, to Christopher Priest, Asimov etc.

This film conveys one of the strongest concepts of science fiction about our universe: That somehow there is a chain of causality and that love is one of the greatest, or maybe the greatest power in nature. In science fiction it is referred to as: Affinity.

Pure by the extreme power of affinity which two sentient beings experienced, combined with some celestial event like a supernova, realities collapse into each other.

I love these stories. If you like this film I really recommend "Coherence".

Amazing music, good and convincing acting, great cinematics. A real vibrant, brisk film and an ode to an old science fiction axiom. More of these kind of films please!!

Bird Box (2018)

Why?

[5/10 · 29 December 2018]

Why. Why. Why. Why. Just why?

Why do people find this film scary? I read on Twitter that people could not sleep for days after seeing this. Yah.

Why is there no explanation about the creatures or phenomenon, what they are, what are their intentions, origin? Or even ONE dialogue where people theorize about the situation?

Why can't the creatures or phenomemon enter houses while they are seemingly so powerfull? They can effectively dismantle society, forcing people to commit suïcide but you can not enter a building? Why is this even remotely believable?

Why are there infected people not comitting suïcide but, however, why are they malevolent to the uninfected?

Why use a genious actor such as John Malkovich and let him blatantly die in such a dull, anticlimactic and useless way? While he looks much bigger and stronger than Gary?

Why did John Malkovich even agree to that?

Why the arbitrary 5 years? Why not 3, 2, 1, 7, 10?

Why do they look exactly the same after 5 years?

Why do you only have the same pump action shotgun after 5 years and not at least a bit more arsenal? And even if you only kept the pump action shotgun, how did you upkeep and maintain an ammo supply for the rifle? While blindfolded?

Why is not shown how they eat, sleep, live, these 5 years? Only some arbitrary shots in a garden and a bed time story given by Tom.

Why is the overall situation outside not, or barely shown?

Why does the group which is roaming around outside have two identical grey cars? Why are they roaming around at all? Clearly they can look. So they can do whatever they want? Why bother going after harmless blindfolded people? And if this task is so important to them or the creatures controlling them, why is this not explained? Or even shown?

Why is Tom able to shoot and kill multiple targets while blindfolded while his enemies can all see clearly? He should have been dead in a matter of seconds.

Why do Malorie and Olympia give birth at the same day and at the exact same moment?? REALLY?!

Why has the choice been made to make flashbacks the whole time, effectively altering the pace?

Why does Malorie while she lost Girl, crawling in the wet mud while blindfolded is able to find the little bell Girl dropped? Do you know how small these odds are? Really? Who writes this stuff? The official 9/11 report is even more believable.

Why are there no injuries AT ALL after the boat capsizes in a clearly lethal rapid where there are sharp rocks, currents pulling you under water and so forth?

Why do these little birds survive all these years, being mangled in this tiny box?

Why is there no character development at all? All the characters introduced by the film die rapidly. You don't get to know them and get even remotely emotionally attached to them, what's the point of having them in the first place?

Why is there no symbolic explanation for all the events occurring? Not even a religious one?

Why are there no other animals? Like cats, dogs and so forth. There is merely one useless shot of a horse.

Why is nothing really shocking? Jessica is hit by a truck. Malkovich dying instantly cause of two hits with a scissors not even close to his heart or lungs. Sure. Cheryl dying of sticking a scissors in the side of her neck twice. Olympia making a fall out of the window, and that's.... about it. Tom shooting himself in the head and the director cuts it off, too lazy to show it. If Stanley Kubrick can do it with Private Pyle in Full Metal Jacket, why not here? It is supposed to be a horror film, right?

Why are people, in the first place, even able to navigate with blindfolds on? Really? Finding a resort in a huge forest while blindfolded only by following bird sounds. REALLY? People should watch Blair Witch Project again.

Why is the bottom line of this plot that blind people and birds will survive? People should go and see Blindness again. Now THAT is a shocking film. Not this crap here. People should go and watch Coherence.

I can go on but I won't. 5/10 because I am a kind person. The film made me watch it through untill the end because the music and sound design was great, the cinematography was great and I kept hoping for some kind of symbolism or at least some clue about what the heck was going on. Maybe I am getting to old for this stuff, like Bullock.

Extinction (2018)

I was annoyed. And I was wrong about that.

[8/10 · 12 September 2018]

"Daddy, I'm scared!!"

In one of the opening scenes, lying in bed at night where Lizzy Caplan weares lipstick and other make up. Whining children, shining flashlights while they need to be hidden or otherwise they die, children crying loud while they need to be silent in order to survive. It almost made me stop watching. It made me think: 'Do I actually hate children or do I dislike this film'?

I thought, oh boy, just another Earth invasion film like 'Skyline' which was a terrible film in my opinion. So I sat there, arms folded, thinking I would give it a shot because I liked Michael Peña. The music wasn't that compelling for me and we are used to these kind of alien invasion kind of scenes. Right?

Because the characters are so detached I did not develop any feeling for them, I did not care at all. In the beginning, that is.

When the child and her mother, the neighbours of the protagonist, died I had a moment of silence. 'Ok, a child just died. You don't see that a lot.' It was kind of shocking actually. From there I started to unfold my arms and the film turned around.

Of course, as a science fiction freak, I was really happy with the plot twist. It opened up a whole realm of symbolic possibilities. When I found out they were actually androids of some sort and that there was a enormous history taking place before the timeline of the film I totally got emotionally attached to the characters. The detachement they portrayed was coupled with them being Synths. Phillip K. Dick, the World War Two Holocaust, It all went through my mind. This was actually genuine. Science Fiction with integrity.

Some cliche moments, slow motion effects to make some scenes more intense where it was actually redundant to me. The violence, the humans spacesuits, the setting and environment was believable but somewhat far fetched. It made me give this one a 7 out of 10.

However, I don't like the low rating. So an 8 out of 10!!

How It Ends (2018)

What is everyone complaining about?????

[8/10 · 22 July 2018]

Great film!

Edge of my seat. Great tension! Amazing role Rikki just vanishing. And of course she does! Think about it! She is much safer by herself than with a guy with internal bleedings and a lovesick insecure man.

You see the fire, the dust, the anomaly receding just before the film fades out. They escape! To the North. Where it is likely more safe.

A spinning compass, some kind of thing is happening to the Earth, not just in the US.

All these people saying this film has no ending are full of horsebucket and need to chill out and watch their weekly shows.

Rebirth (I) (2016)

Slightly above average, good potential misused...

[6/10 · 23 July 2016]

I really wanted to like this film more than I rated it, a slight 6.

The concept appealed to me: The protagonist is surrounded by abstract situations and aberrant behaving people while they, by contrast, experience everything as being ordinary. Only the protagonist seems to have problems with the conduct of his antagonists and we must watch it, frustratingly. There are not many good films doing this so I gave it a shot.

The film makes it seem as if all the people surrounding the protagonist conspire against him, in some sort of illicit plot to brainwash him. It reminded me of 'The Game' by David Fincher, however, Michael Douglas is way more convincing. In 'The Game' Michael Douglas plays a real emotionally strong character and we witness him breaking down. 'Rebirth' starts off with a real insecure and somewhat awkward main character and this is in my perspective one of it's flaws. There is not much character to break down, the protagonist already seems to be too unable to cope with his changing environment. I mean, you notice this in the opening of the film. You are already watching a guy who is emotionally unstable. So you might think that he might gain some character but this is a disappointing thought.

Of course, why not have an emotionally weak character if it's played well and fits in the overall concept? The performance of Fran Kranz was likable, at some point flavored with humor when it needed to be but it just didn't nail it for me. In two or more situations I really felt I would have reacted differently to the situation, making his insecurity unbelievable to me, on the edge of annoying. His frantic attempt to exit, or rather escape the building, resulting in an endless trip through hallways was really unbelievable to me. He couldn't find the exit and just leave? While being totally sober? Come on... There are so much films doing this better, the sense of claustrophobia or being lost in some place: Fear-X, Into the Void, Psych9, Stay, Limitless whatever. So the whole concept of him trying to escape the building is not conveyed at all while they do show it on screen.It seemed to me that the whole voyage through the building and it's rooms and characters were almost a trip through his mind, or for that matter, the writers mind. The film unfortunately lacked a necessary amount of symbolism to support this.

When disappointment started to emerge the film avoided to become vulgar and cheap and that made me watch it to the end. It started off with so much potential, it was somewhat curious to see it all unfold. The scene in the beginning of the film where they remove the blindfolds had this 'Fight Club' kind of feel about it and really felt genuine. Again, a Fincher title where the film seems to be inspired by. While he is picked on by the leader of the group and used as an example of a rookie, he is drawn away by the attractive blonde. I found this somewhat strange, as the room was really tumultuous. Her voice being very soft made it seem it was only audible to the main character Kyle through the uproar of the audience. This emphasized the 'mind game' what was going on, but as mentioned before, the film does not back this up enough to make it palpable.

The scene where he is hit and emotionally abused by the, presumably, psychologist was really unbelievable to me. I would go along with the mind games of this 'Rebirth' program to some extent, but this was way too belligerent and hostile for me to just stand there. I would have absolutely tried to defend myself.

Towards the end it appears the people behind the 'Rebirth' program stole his identity and bank account information, blackmailing him to do, well, I really did not get to do what. It felt cheap to me, the film didn't need this at all, I needed a more abstract solution to this all. In 'The Game' the protagonist also is led to believe he is bankrupt, but there it's way more significant and convincing.

The film ends with Kyle suddenly being totally integrated in the 'Rebirth' program, somehow as a full fledged member and promoting the whole program. This felt as a unnatural transition and seemed redundant to me; maybe to give some kind of mocking criticism to cults, like Scientology, but it didn't convince me enough. I found the ending not satisfying. It seemed totally misguided here, or maybe it's just me and am I missing something. Still considering a second viewing.

The atmosphere of the film stayed fresh enough, I liked the tension and cinematography and this kept me going, but in the end, slightly above average, considering what could have been done with the concept.