This movie sucks

I'm highly intelligent and smarter than... I'd say 88% of you... and all I can say is this may have been Mr. Penn's greatest effort thus far. America's greatest living actor bar none = Sean Penn!

Great great great flick!

*beep* republicans

i loved this movie

I have been out of the country for about 11 years now though manage to keep up on movies and US popular culture. I am mainly responding to register my horror at the lack of coherence, reasoning, and articulation presented in many of the posts.
I hope you realize that no serious person would even consider responding to such slop in any place other than a free discussion board on the net.

Have a little pride in yourselves and think through an argument at least. There is never going to be a total agreement when it comes to such subjective topics as taste in movies. What seems more important here is the ability to coherently present your point of view. "This movie totally sucks" its "boring" etc... doesn't convey any real information except that you didn't take the time to think through any of the material which was presented to you... i.e. YOU wasted YOUR OWN TIME by not thinking about what you were watching and then being able to express what you liked or disliked about it.

Everything can be critiqued and analyzed but it requires a bit of thought, planning and organization. I get "s..t" all the time about dumb Americans where I live and argue that it is not true... however going by alot of the posts on this board its a hard arguement to justify.

"The part where he shoots the dog was completely unnecessary too, there was no point in it. I would never recommend this movie to anyone and actually have told people NOT to watch it. And this has nothing to do with me being a republican, thank you Brothafromanothamotha. Just cuz I voted for Bush doesn't make any difference on how much this movie sucked. I thought it blew chunks and there is no way I'll change my opinion on this. "


Actually shooting the dog did have a point. I doubt Sam ever killed a living thing, and he thought he would either kill people when he flew into the white house, or at least kill people on the plane, while hijacking it. He had to prepare for those actions.

And you voting for Bush DOESN"T have anything to do with your opinion on this film. It just means that you're a *beep* moron.

For anyone's reading (anyone who's out there for your eye's only) :

THIS IS AN URGENT SITUATION; A WORST CASE SENARIO strictly hypothetical senario, but could happen, hope not! :

When you take the needles away from a heroine addict and offer them a plate of broccoli and egg whites, with spinach, it’s only natural that they will throw up as if they were given poison – the same is true for the crack head contingent.

Just like the substance known as heroine, and that of crack has brainwashed the person/the addict, the culture of perpetual, instantaneous, gratification of the most lurid abase denominator, has brainwashed the so called ‘Bottom Line crowd’. So swathed in this vice-like grip perpetuated for years by nihilistic producers, these wretched folk (swelling turgid in size and girth across a planet called earth – hope you like that one) they no longer know their right hand from their left foot, let alone what is good to eat.

Its not that people no longer want anything good or decent, or that they have become anti-quality, they no longer can tell the differenced, so programmed by the shadow of sewage that is being pumped in to peoples skulls a 101 miles an hour all across the earth, IN ONE EAR AND OUT THE OTHER.

They want continuous gratification of the vilest order, live and direct from Disney Land. The most ruthless purveyors and panderers of this Crystal meth-like poison will have people dressed like Mickey and Minnie Mouse handing out candy covered crack-rocks, in their desperate efforts to PLEASE THE BOTTOM-LINE CROWD. Along with powdered heroine and crystal-meth-flecked candy floss to keep this baying crowd happy in order to avoid a stampede of rioting headless addicts (to say mindless would be an understatement of the situation): the dealers of this drug threaten to create a STAMPEDE OF GRATIFICATION LEPERS out of considerate minded people.

Once the crowd have gorged and glutted themselves on this baleful banquet, the brainwashers have cinemas set up like massage parlours to gratify, as one urge leads to another.

With this brainwashing and programming complete this Borg-like legion is then sent out to assimilate all other opinions in favour of basement and sewer style quality films.

I don’t want to assimilate any one to my opinion, because opinions are not the truth just 6 billion different versions of it going round and round like planet earth or like a spinning top which must fall to the ground at some point. No I want films, especially ones of such brilliance like A History Of Violence to represent themselves rather than be represented by morbidly disproportionate, unbalanced, loaded and biased opinions. Whether these biased thoughts come from people who get paid for their baseless opinions or from people who don’t!!!


When the audiences sensibilities are so brutally desensitized by the pap they've forced down their throats, so numbed by the onslaught of the bottom line marketing criteria, all satisfaction from any form of media will be ineffectual, and people will only find 'entertainment ' form being shot of cannons at the carnie, whilst dressed in clown costumes - at only 50 cents a pop.


[There will be a choice of normal clown attire or the crusty the clown look alike wear].

And finally, when the audiences sensibilities and that of the entire planet have succumbed to the bottom-line pap that the anti-quality crowd crave unconditionally the only 'entertainment' that people will find satisfying will be dressing up in clown costumes and re-enacting scenes from BUM-FIGHTS, then re-enacting the final days and last performance of GG Allin and his band The MURDER JUNKIES, playing at The Gas Station. It could become a world wide Phenomenon!

Envision this becoming so severe that the planet slowly or quickly becomes infested with headless soul-sucking zombies running rampant as they gratify themselves in unmentionable ways, relentlessly and incessantly, in their thirsty hunt for vile sensations.
Envision whole planets swallowed up as it spreads like a phage from planet to planet, galaxy to galaxy, and then universe to universe. Folks untouched by this inter-universe pandemic will have to flee in what ever vehicle they can find and be selective about other universe’s that they decide to plant their house, as many may have already succumbed to this pandemic. The search for New Worlds will be treacherous, but one must overcome and find solace!

These addicts have made a hole in the Hull, the ship is sinking faster than the Titanic, this is not the time for talking or rude speeches, but the time to find life boats and pursue better ground.

The Assassination of Richard Nixon is part of the neo-renaissance in cinema, just like that of the 1970’s.


Better to keep hooker sex in a motel bedroom and substance on the screen.
[A paraphrase from the Director of Once Were Warriors (If you're reading please return to the place - or find a new place - that gave the world films like Once Were Warriors).


DISCLAIMER: If offended by the above in any way shape or form please refer to the A history of violence discussions Boards, for solace.

(seek AHOV Thread entittled quote "just bad all round" unquote.)

Thanks for the European point of view. Of course you are correct in just about everything you say. The only thing I would add from this side of the Atlantic is that there are a lot of Americans who also understand what you say about the society we live in. And even though the film didn't do great business theatrically in the US, the dvd did very good business from what I read on this site. So the film has found an audience here too. It is a work of art so of course it's not going to get the attention that a popcorn movie does. But it will be around for a loooonnnnng time and I suspect people will be watching this film for years to come. Thanks for your insightful and articulate commentary. What country are you in in Europe? Did you see the film in the theater or rent it?

i actually really liked this movie.

great camera work and the script was pretty good.