Nice effects though.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

I picked this up when browsing in Borders (others shops are available) and a quick glance at the box won me over. I took it to the counter expecting it to be a fictional piece or at most a movie based on true events.From the start I was fixated, the doubt in my own mind about whether or not it was true and why it wouldn't be kept me watching to see just how it panned out.The fear he must've felt when he 'woke up' must've been unbearable. Doug clearly has a very strong character, or the new Doug does. Not knowing who your own friends are, what you'd shared together or even whether they are good friends is all based on instinct, past letters/emails and tales. Could you cope as well as Doug? Very very interesting piece.

The video account in Unknown White Male was brilliant.I have watched different movies about amnesia, which is always a good story line but this one was very different and very real. It reduced me to tears as I had suffered almost the same thing in the late sixties. This was without doubt the closest account I'd come across. The memory holds many facets, numerical, verbal, pictorial, humour, love, jokes, innuendos, the subtleties within our language, age old phrases, the list goes on.It's as though you're from another planet. This is something impossible to fake as your whole identity is lost, and you come, in time, to accept that no one really understands, not even doctors. It's not a general thing, that others can comprehend within their own life experiences. It has taken me nearly thirty years to come to terms with what happened to me, as at the time, understanding of the psychological long term effects of amnesia was very limited. I found this young man's story an inspiration and could relate with him in so many ways. The need to tape it, to remember, to have some data when there's nothing else. I wrote diaries and even put little pictures of the weather in the corner to keep remembering.

I'll admit that it's Blockbuster's fault that the only thing indicating this movie was a documentary was an approximately 6-point footnote at the bottom of a smeary label. Still, this movie definitely doesn't pass as a "suspense thriller" or anything like unto it. The sound was horribly done, with annoying screeches, bizarre music, and extreme (and extremely useless) volume changes. The cinematography was "child-like" at best and "I'd rather sit at a stoplight and watch actual lights blink, actual trash blow around, and actual people I don't care about talking to one another" at worst. The scenario was interesting, but the interviews were badly cut and awkward, the film quality was well below par, and the general feel of the film was on par with being at a family restaurant on 12 people's birthdays. Minus the horrible sound and camera-work, this film was only marginally totally boring. Only every other documentary I've ever watched is more interesting.

According to the narrator of UNKNOWN WHITE MALE, Englishman Douglas Bruce mysteriously lost his memory one chilly autumn day and found himself walking around Coney Island in New York City in shorts and sandals. The film begins there with a brief recap of the events of his time in Coney Island and a psychiatric ward. In addition to interviews with doctors, Bruce's friends, girlfriends and family members, the viewer also sees footage Bruce shot himself in the days following his break from memory. So we see him rediscover such things as his apartment, different foods, and even a reunion with his father and two sisters, as well as various friends.This should be enlightening, exciting, fascinating or at the very least mildly interesting. But, very quickly after the first ten minutes or so of UNKNOWN WHITE MALE, it all becomes very uninteresting. This is a film about a 30-year-old man who has lost all of his memory. How possibly could this film not be engaging? Leave that to the particular talents of the director, or lack thereof, since director Rupert Murray manages to make the subject matter a fairly tedious exercise.As any dime store dramatist knows, conflict is what makes a story interesting. However, incredulously, there seems to be very little in a documentary film about a man who's lost his memory.There is no desperation to the situation. And as a work of non-fiction, this is, again, puzzling. Bruce has no financial worries, and has plenty of support at home. An ex-girlfriend flies from Poland to help him and Bruce is even "adopted" by another ex-girlfriends mother. What the film focuses on is his self-absorbed muddle through one encounter after another. There are only so many scenes of Bruce asking, in a child-like way, "what is this new food" when he samples chocolate again for the first time amongst other experiences. The most dramatic moment is Bruce meeting his father and sisters for the first time and learning that his mother has passed away some time before.His father and sisters seemed genuine enough and the moment felt sincere in its awkwardness, but, ultimately, I couldn't take much meaning away from it. The same held true when Bruce learns his mother was dead. As a dramatic moment it rang false. It just seems odd to be upset about a person he doesn't know. Seems more played for dramatic effect then anything else and that effect wasn't there.Because of this lack of drama, the occasional epiphanies about what is life and how our memories fit into the scheme of things, UNKNOWN WHITE MALE comes across as rather labored. There is only so much of Bruce's puppy dog eyes and meanderings a person can take.There is some controversy surrounding the film regarding whether or not Douglas Bruce is faking his memory loss and thus making the entire film a sham. I honestly couldn't care less and I think that is the main problem with UNKNOWN WHITE MALE I just don't care. For the record, however, I doubt that Mr. Bruce lost his memory. In addition to his history of self-indulgent adventures with his friends, he simply acts too much like someone who's lost their memory. And really, that's just it. It's as if he's giving a performance rather then merely being.In the end it doesn't really matter, since there is little to take from UNKNOWN WHITE MALE other then it's pretense and the mild interest of whether or not Bruce is faking it. I would have to go with what the French woman sitting next to me said during the film. "Zis Feelm et is so borhwring. Zis manh is ahnoying" Yes, unknown French female, he and et is.