If you enjoyed this film I recommend you watch Sean Penn's The Crossing Guard, from which it steals liberally. Featuring one of the greatest performances from the very great Jack Nicholson.
I am glad I read this review after watching the film. The review betrays reviewer's dislikes but they are really not about the movie, but most likely about the reviewer's biases.
The film is brilliant. I can name several men that could be this film's protagonist. The man who felt nothing is the running theme with all the macho men brought up in the soup of toxic masculinity of the civilized Western world. Consumerism and misguided masculinity are the two culprits behind the main character's invisible plight. The film is elevating and heartbreaking at once, completely real and the metaphors in it are applicable to every person's life.
The acting is perfect, it is not acting, really, since you believe every stare, every action, every conversation. The premise is also completely believable despite laments from the reviewer and some commenters.
All in all, I will be buying this on Blue-Ray.
The film is brilliant. I can name several men that could be this film's protagonist. The man who felt nothing is the running theme with all the macho men brought up in the soup of toxic masculinity of the civilized Western world. Consumerism and misguided masculinity are the two culprits behind the main character's invisible plight. The film is elevating and heartbreaking at once, completely real and the metaphors in it are applicable to every person's life.
The acting is perfect, it is not acting, really, since you believe every stare, every action, every conversation. The premise is also completely believable despite laments from the reviewer and some commenters.
All in all, I will be buying this on Blue-Ray.
3
I was happy to discover I wasn't alone in finding this a pretentious film that also wasn't narratively coherent. I am a Jake fan but the images of his "buff" body and the sequence of his breaking out in a dance through Manhattan that was too precious and additional movie turn-offs. Does every production team feel the actor has to demonstrate his/her bob Fidel's in terms of body shape and athleticism?
The one thing the film has going for it is Gyllenhaal's charisma in an otherwise bad, pretentious movie. If it was a French film, maybe I'd give it a pass.
What a phenomenal film. This review does not do the film justice. It was a poignant and moving film, one of JG best performances besides "Southpaw". JG plays Davis so well, within minutes we feel like we are sitting in Davis shoes as he writes the letters to the vending company. The characters were raw and life-like, JMV knew exactly what he was going for. Stellar directorship and exceptional screenplay from Bryan Sipe. The movie had me in tears one second and laughing the next. It was an emotional rollercoaster and the demolition scenes were symbolically powerful. Overall, a great film, without a doubt, one of JGs best if not the one. Definite rate of 8/10.
I found it heavy-handed.
The thought of feeling sorry for an investment banker, is lost in me.
If I saw them all go poor tomorrow, I still would not feel a thing either.
Not watching.
If I saw them all go poor tomorrow, I still would not feel a thing either.
Not watching.
1
wow...not sure whose disconnect is more serious, the guy with the hammer or the one with the pen...they start evenly, numb...but the log jam blockage of emotional flow (metaphor watch!) p'raps overdone in the film (to an observer unaware of how severe these things can, often asymptomatic and painless) that the hammer guy sets out to break, totally eludes the critical and emotional intelligence of the guy with the pen...whatever else is going on, the hammer guy is not unaffected by the death of his wife, he is cut loose from his moorings and swept smack into the log jam...a struggle ensues, however it strikes one, against (metaphor warning!) the confining structure/log jam that, keeps us from that salubrious ride on the...and so on.
And for a completely opposite assessment -- http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/04/18/demolition-and-louder-than-...
1
While flawed in ways that are indicated and those that aren't, my sense is that perhaps the only possible fans for this film are those who, like Davis, suffer from a what seems a variation of "locked-in" syndrome. These are people who, for a variety of usually inaccessible reasons, are largely numb to life, including their own. Generally, such people's efforts to shut down and hide as adults imply having been seriously hurt as children. Just like the dentist does for a tooth that needs work, people dig much deeper than they are consciously aware they are digging in order to hide from what they are certain is yet more pain to come.
So, for me, this film was amongst the best I've seen in some time. Jake Gyllenhaal's performance was entirely convincing.
But, for arguments sake, let's just give your reviewer his due and agree that the film is less than great. Nonetheless, many should overlook its flaws in deference to what seems its heart-felt positive contribution to a serious mental health issue: for those suffering in ways similar to Davis, a return to life might just be possible.
In fact, the film's depiction of that very return to life that Davis manages, the "enchantment" of those final scenes, the focus of many cynical critics' dismissals of this movie, might just be the most satisfying segment: numb people are largely "impossibilists." We are in need of nothing more than we are re-enchantment.
So, for me, this film was amongst the best I've seen in some time. Jake Gyllenhaal's performance was entirely convincing.
But, for arguments sake, let's just give your reviewer his due and agree that the film is less than great. Nonetheless, many should overlook its flaws in deference to what seems its heart-felt positive contribution to a serious mental health issue: for those suffering in ways similar to Davis, a return to life might just be possible.
In fact, the film's depiction of that very return to life that Davis manages, the "enchantment" of those final scenes, the focus of many cynical critics' dismissals of this movie, might just be the most satisfying segment: numb people are largely "impossibilists." We are in need of nothing more than we are re-enchantment.
4
Indeed, critics can't help but over-process a film's mechanics but to be fair, that's their job isn't it?
For normal people like me, the film is a delight to watch. It deals with heavy themes but doesn't take itself completely seriously. One of the better movies I've seen in a while. A treat especially for New Yorkers.
For normal people like me, the film is a delight to watch. It deals with heavy themes but doesn't take itself completely seriously. One of the better movies I've seen in a while. A treat especially for New Yorkers.
1
I very much enjoyed the movie. Go with the flow try to keep the story lines in your head or don't, still his performance was fine, very fine. It always felt as if I was in his head...and very humand , confused and real. Different... fresh.... subtle.
3
I have a close contact who also is trying to understand his problems and the deterioration of his mind by taking things apart - literally. He hasn't done a refrigerator or used a sledgehammer yet, but many of the other scenes were frighteningly familiar. I only hope he can come out the other side the way Jake did. I thought it was brilliant.
While this movie probably won't win any awards, the performances are all first rate. It doesn't make use of all the usual tropes (for which, unaccountably, the reviewer gives it a sad shake of his pointed little head) and, yes, the ending may seem a little too pat but I felt it was honestly earned.
I must caution readers that a review is only an opinion. This is film worth watching and even if you don't feel like paying full price, I suspect it'll be on pay-per-view in short order. See it and make up your own mind.
I must caution readers that a review is only an opinion. This is film worth watching and even if you don't feel like paying full price, I suspect it'll be on pay-per-view in short order. See it and make up your own mind.
4
Interesting review and at opposite ends of the one aired on radio by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Their reviewer gave the film high praise and ended by saying, "I loved this movie." I haven't seen it yet but have concluded that one reviewer doth not a dog make.
1
It's the kind of movie Nicolas Cage used to make.
2
If there's a literary pretension, then it's Camus's "The Stranger," but "Demolition" is a comedy in relation to how that work ultimately plays out. (I took Davis's "metaphor" comment as a dismissive joke, not an analysis.) I liked the movie; it seemed a chamber piece; watch the characters' faces closely. Sometimes grief has to be overtly physical because there really are no words.
3
Once again, a reviewer lays the blame of a bad movie at the feet of the screenwriter, which is about the only time that screenwriters ever get noted in reviews at all. Vallee - who is usually a very good director, but has never made an American feature as good as C.R.A.Z.Y. - is totally left off the hook. So much for the auteur theory.
2
It's really not safe to use a sawzall while wearing a tie - or a jacket for that matter.
1
"That clunky observation is meant to clue us in to this self-regarding movie’s literary pretensions, gleaned perhaps from some misbegotten writers’ workshop."
Brilliant!
Brilliant!
4
well...as a critical correlative, the phrase and it's intellectual parent actually define misbegotten...
1
Saw the trailer. Even though I know what the movie is about; I have NO idea what the movie is about.
3
Thanks for the review. I'll pass on this one. Not even worth renting.
1
If you kept that promise, you have missed out on a very good film. If you are not the contemplative type and prefer action movies, then you have not missed much. But if you do allow thought onto your mental plate, this is a quality cinematic experience.
This felt very real for me. Every character reacted as you would expect. I loved it.
3
Someone has to explain to Mr. Gyllenhaal that extreme behavior is not good acting. See his last three or four films. It's just an actor exhibiting, well, extreme behavior. Of course, DiCaprio got an oscar for this kind of one note extremity. So it's difficult to make the case. But make it I do. Suffering highly intense physical tortures do not make a performance. It is a refuge for actors who are incapable of opening their souls. And so give us empty feats of physical endurance in place of something honest, naked and truthful.
12