For the sake of everyone involved I hope this ends up going straight to video. Douglas and Tamblyn should know better. A major motion picture (intentionally) starring Jesse Metcalfe? WTF?! What studio chief ok'd this disaster?
I was gonna say with that enormous cast, he wasn't actually a "star' - but his is the only name I recognize! So oddly enough, I guess he somehow IS the 'star'. Well, let's see how it is before we judge.
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Don't bother it is really a bad movie. Better spend you hard earned bucks buying a paint can, painting it and then watching it dry.
shareIt's worse than you think. Metcalf has the starring role. Tamblyn also has a bigger role than Douglas. It is a horrible movie.
sharePretty much the worst movie I've seen all year...along with Paper Heart. Even worse.
Where do I start with what was wrong with it???
1) acting was just pathetic
2) writing was bad too - no introduction to characters and anything, just straight into assumptions that the audience knows who the characters are
3) THE WORST - editing...
Ohhhh the editing. It was like watching a movie in fast-forward. There was no time to breathe, literally, I feel like every sentence of dialogue was strung together tighr to make sure there were ABSOLUTELY no spaces between them (and other sound mixing problems), and the cuts were horrendously fast. It was as if there was a competition to see what the shortest period of time was that the editor could display a certain shot on screen. Cut to Jesse Metcalfe cut to Amber Tamblyn cut to Jesse Metcalfe cut to Amber Tamblyn cut to Jesse cut to insert shot of dog (split-second long) cut to Jesse...until I just walked out.
Absolutely nothing redeeming about the movie, except for the opening title. That was actually done well.
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No the jokes came in at the most inopportune times. It was like the writer couldn't choose between character set-up/development scenes and plot advancement scenes, so they just mashed it all together. Horrible movie. It all moved too fast too.
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The execution could've been better! Way better.
share"um so i take it dat u didnt like da little jokes in da movie like when metcalf intentionally spilled coffee on his friend at work or when metcalf jokes dat tamlyn cant get him onto bed on first date...so i take it dat u didnt find any of these funnie?"
Yeah, they're about as funny as your post - I do hope you meant it to be funny and aren't this pathetically ignorant.
People, are you all crazy or what?
Then just watch "Jennifer's Body", "Spread", or "Summer's Blood" to name a few "outstanding" movies of this year.
and then again I would like to see the list of the movies you LIKED.
Because when people make such outrageous statements about movies ... their tastes turn out to be ... well, just tell me which this year movies you liked.
I'm going to have to agree with practicalhope and amethystx.
I am watching a screener of BARD right now and everything amethystx said about pacing (of which editing is a part) is positively spot on. Pacing is at fault, yes, but so is story and direction.
The romance between CJ and Ella seems to exist simply because the script says it should. When characterization is at the service of the story, like it is here, the filmmakers really tax the audience's ability to suspend disbelief. The acting is not great, it's passable. But this film has bigger problems than passable acting.
First, let's be careful not to assume this was well directed just because it's Peter Hyams. All the actors pretty much delivered their lines at a fairly consistent speed and in a "scene-appropriate" way. But when it came time to edit them together, that's when things fall apart. Take a look at the "meet cute" between CJ and Ella. The editing is just the way amethyst said: there's no room to breathe here yet the actors are not delivering their lines as quickly as the cuts come, are they? That's not the actors' fault. That's poor editing trying to cover for poor directing. Watch the courtroom scene when CJ reveals on the witness stand what he was really up to. The judge and defense attorney's lines are carved up in the same fashion: with no pauses whatsoever. Sure, the dialogue may just be exposition, but exposition is important too.
I have to think it was a deliberate decision to cut it this way but...come on, it's the director's job to know (before hand) what kind of picture is being made: a breakneck thriller, thought-provoking mystery, full-throttle action, etc. And if you've got to switch gears within the same flick (as most do) then you've got to know which scenes progress at which speeds.
You know how directors do several takes of the same scene and/or lines? They'll tell their actors to "do this one quickly" and "do this one really slowly" and so forth, which gives the editor the latitude to change the pace as required by the story? Well, I get the feeling that wasn't done here. Maybe Micheal Douglas' fee took away from the budget a bit too much.
Another poster wrote that if you liked "Fracture" then you'll like BARD. Well, one of those two films features a well-written, well-directed story wherein the characters behave and react mostly-believably. The other movie does not.
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Oh, and to let arriva and others know what kind of taste I have (as though that were to somehow validate an opinion):
For 2009 so far...
Thumbs up:
500 Days of Summer
Antichrist
District 9
Fighting
Funny People
Inglorious Basterds
Orphan
Public Enemies
Star Trek
Zombieland
Thumbs down:
Bruno
The Goods Live Hard Sell Hard
Harry Potter Half-Blood Prince
Paranormal Activity
Surrogates
I was not crazy about the editing either. In particular, the sound editing bothered me. For awhile I was not sure if the movie was supposed to be a comedy, a 'dramedy', or a suspense film. I just couldn't tell from the tone and the pacing. There were places where I felt the music should have been building to a climax, but that did not happen.
hpankin, I loved Inglorious Basterds!
SEE "THE RAP CRITIC":
http://www.youtube.com/user/AndreJaxon
i made it for about 20 minutes and put it back in the netflix envelope! YAWN.
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