The Age of Commercialism

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

I have not been so supremely pi$$ed at a movie for a long, long time...I was REALLY drawn into this one. The writing, acting, and especially the direction was beautifully done. Even the soundtrack was excellent.BUT...This is the kind of film where right from the beginning you just KNOW that things are not going to turn out well. But, as step by step, scene by scene, things develop along quite surprising lines, you actually begin to think that just MAYBE things might turn out in a positive way. Well, they WERE... until at the very last moment when the director or whoever decided to end the movie in the completely pointless way that they did. For NO reason that I could see, they pull out the rug from under us and COMPLETELY defeat the clever, and extremely entertaining and thrilling suspense that has been artfully built, layer upon layer throughout the entire movie. In a moment, it's all just gone, for nothing... I can understand IF you start out with the purpose of making a Noirish film where you show how people making the wrong decisions or acting selfishly lead them to a quagmire of self-destruction. Fine... Classic FILM NOIR is full of excellent stories like that. BUT... in this case, they take all this time, care, and effort to build such a complex web of circumstances that you really start to get amped that they just MIGHT get away with it. And then, in just the passage of literally a moment, they completely destroy EVERYTHING that they have painstakingly built up throughout the movie. To me, that is just about THE most stupid and utterly disappointing thing you can possibly do to an audience... We are left with the feeling of, 'What the hell was the point of all that?'That is not what I call an effective film. Certainly NOT an entertaining one... Sure, a lot of the circumstances and events that happen to them are VERY implausible; that is true. But that is the point. Why build up all these almost impossible breaks and chances that they get and deliberately slant the film towards building up all this expectation, just to smash it all by some completely random, senseless action...? Why...? You either build a Classic Noir morality tale where the audience KNOWS that the characters are doomed from the start. Or, you create a film where all these wildly improbable things happen where they get away with it, leaving the audience entertained from the sheer amazingness of it. But, you don't build it up one way just deliberately to play with the audience and destroy their expectations because of some random, meaningless thing that happens at the last moment. I just do NOT see the entertainment value of doing it that way at all. You either present these doomed characters from the beginning where at the end the audience feels, 'well, they brought it on themselves', thus the morality tale, or you construct it in a way that seems to build up the expectation that these guys are going to beat fate after all. Either one or the other, but not some disappointing B@stardized version of both.That just leaves the audience with a totally pointless and VERY unsatisfied feeling.Just my lowly and wretched opinion...

When the dog got killed I laughed, soft-hearted dog lover that I am, because the Dog was standing in for the Square. (And what a dog! Able to race through neighborhoods, swim a river and then run through yet another neighborhood to find his cutie!) Come to think of it, the two owners of the dogs, in the opening sequence, while hooking up, had both dogs in the same car. Maybe the director's cut will open on the two dogs having a go of it and then pan over to Ray and Carla getting it on. But seriously..... By not showing a compelling reason, other than sex, in even one scene, I had increasing difficulty over Ray's willingness to dump everything for the sake of his sex mate. And jumping to the end of the movie, after a badly staged scene of Carla getting killed.....and the camera-on-a-crane showing a disconsolate and bloody Ray walking down the street away from the carnage, one is supposed to say 'tsk-tsk' poor guy. But I didn't have any sympathy for either Carla or Ray at that point. How do you sympathize with characters who have little character and who you don't like?Other more technical annoyances were a couple of impenetrable accents and also poor casting choices which made it confusing to know who was who.Why did Lenny steal the generator? And what did he have on Ray?It also wasn't enough to kill, in a road accident, the suspicious foreman but the writers had to also place an infant in the vehicle.After a break in, wouldn't the obvious thing to happen, with all the materials lying around, be the hiring of a security guard?And pray tell how did the boss-of-bosses and the law know about the blackmailing? More important, how were they going to resolve the serious breach of the law that they were involved in?There really were more silly things gathering along the way but you get the idea.....

'THE SQUARE': Three and a Half Stars (Out of Five) Intrigued by Harry Knowles (popular film critic for 'Ain't It Cool News') promise that this is "One of the best films of the year. The best film noir since 'BODY HEAT'" (Which is plastered all over the DVD case) I decided to check out this low budget Australian thriller. It's directed by Nash Edgerton and written by his brother Joel, with some help from Matthew Dabner. The Edgerton brothers have a diverse range of film experience from stunts (Nash is well known in Australia for this) to editing to acting (Joel played Owen Lars in 'STAR WARS: EPISODE II' and 'III'). This is the brothers first feature together in which they're writer and director (Joel also has a decent sized acting role in the film). While I don't think it's one of the very best films of the year or the best film noir since 'BODY HEAT' (I sometimes agree with Knowles and sometimes don't) I do think it's a very well made and entertaining film, especially for such a low budget one.Experienced character actor David Roberts stars as Raymond Yale, a construction worker who's become bored with marriage and has started a heated affair with the young hairdresser Carla (played by the beautiful Claire van der Boom) who lives next door. Carla has recently discovered a blood stained bag filled with money hidden in her home by her criminal husband Greg (played by Anthony Hayes). She talks the reluctant Raymond into helping her stealing it by burning down their home and with it the apparent bag of money but things of course don't go as planned. Greg becomes aware that the money wasn't in the house and the two lovers become entangled in much bigger crimes as things get worse and worse.The film takes one depressing twist after another and the hero digs himself even deeper and deeper into trouble which leaves the viewer kind of mad. In a lot of film noir this is the point but in this film the events that take place are so ridiculously over the top and unbelievable that the film doesn't quite work on the level it should. It's still a beautifully moody and well acted film and like I said impressive for such a low budget one. Despite the film's fall from reality I still found myself wrapped up in the characters and really wanted things to work out for them. Be warned this movie is pretty gloomy and depressing but due to it's mild foray into campy-ness it's also darkly comedic. Not a great film but a well made and memorable one all the same.Watch our movie review show 'MOVIE TALK' at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8w-4xZ94ZU

Unlike some rapturous reviewers, I don't get the appeal of this movie at all. It is violent, senseless, and then violent some more. Why is everyone in Australia heavily armed, except our hero? The performances are fine, but what good is that if the movie is too long and the plot hard to follow? If you want to see a coherent drama concerning a big bag of hot cash, rent "A Simple Plan" and call it good. (Length requirements constrain me to add that the movie concerns a married man and a married woman who want to run off together. She spots a stash of cash her husband has hidden in the attic, and they scheme to get it by - hiring an arsonist to burn the house down after she steals it! Unfortunately, that doesn't work out too well because the arsonist's girlfriend doesn't get to him in time to call the whole thing off, and the husband isn't fooled anyway. Meanwhile, hero has some cash flow problems of his own by taking a kickback at work. A character who threatens to expose him impales himself accidentally, but our hero feels compelled to bury the body secretly anyway. The two schemes of thievery are vainly interwoven as if they somehow share a parallel theme other than concerning stolen money, but the Edgertons just aren't that skilled at the loom.)