Simple.
How much did you expect from Transformers 2 or GI Joe?
How much did you expect from a Jarmusch film with a great cast?
It's an understatement to say that I was disappointed with The Limits of Control. It is literally, one of the worst movies I've ever seen, and I've seen MANY MANY films. You might be able to admire Christopher Doyle's cinematography, but the storyline and purpose to watching the film is completely pointless. It comes across as a film full of cameos from actors that Jarmusch is friends with. Great, he got Gael Garcia Bernal, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, John Hurt and more...their scenes are unengaging and lead to nothing.
Contrast this with Ghost Dog, where Forrest Whitaker's character has some ethics and codes that he lives and dies by. He has some of the requisite idiosyncrasies that you see in a Jarmusch character, but there's a plot that you couldn't simply start watching an hour in because you would lose the setup...the introduction to various characters and events.
It looks like a film, it sounds like a film, but it something that I would ever want to sit through again.
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Condemn
14 years ago
Yep, it was a disappointing, boring waste of time. Half the dialogue was recycled, 'Do you speak Spanish?' a hundred times. Half the movie was recycled, with the main character practising tai chi poorly a hundred times also.
Whether the director was trying to be 'deep' and 'artistic' with this movie - or the complete opposite - means nothing to me simply because of how terrible it was.
Too bad, because it had some great actors in it. What a waste.
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