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"The Fall", a technically and artistically okay flick filmed in Budapest, tells of a frustrated American writer (Scheffer) who finds himself involved in drama and intrigue when his flat is invaded by a beautiful woman on the run (de Fougerolles). A flawed screenplay with a thin story which doggedly wrestles with its own flimsy plot, "The Fall" makes for the kind of monotonous watch which is most likely to be enjoyed on late night tv when the picking is slim.

Even though at the time I thought I had nothing else to do besides watching it, and that it was on TV, I regret wasting my time on this movie. This flick is definitely one of the most incoherent, twisted, worthless pieces of work I've ever seen. The story involves so many contradictions, it becomes an unintentional comedy (and that only if you have a big sense of humor). The picture, sound, and other technical work is OK, but if you're just looking to see good technical work, then get the National Geographic or the Discovery Channel. The sex scene seems to be made just to accomplish a requirement (because it was too soft, so unnecessary and unjustifiable to the story). It's like mixing elements without any sense of coherence, just to get a movie that has it all. And yep, it has action (poor performance there), it has mystery, suspense, sex (too graphic and too soft at the same time), nudity, violence, BUT NO LOGICAL ADHESION BETWEEN THEM. Big waste of time to say the less.

The all too brief images of a very limited number of Budapest locales and the few actual Hungarian actors, plus the excellent Jurgen Prochnow are not enough to save this insipid, convoluted mess. The 3 other leads deliver performances akin to cardboard cut-outs, although it may well be the very poorly written script's lack of coherence that's to blame. If it's Budapest you're interested in, you'll do better watching a travelogue. There are many other very fine foreign films that deserve a viewing, give one of those a chance and pass on this one.

An good thriller which in my opinion was let down by a slightly dubious cast and poor direction. While the script was a little obvious it seemed to have the potential for much more and I liked the premise of a foreigner out of his depth in a strange country and the central relationship that was bought together by this situation. I think the director however missed out on building the tense claustrophobic atmosphere that this should have been. This could have been partly due to the cinematography however, which, while starting out with very stylish exteriors, seemed to lose all sense of it's cinematic scope on the interiors.

I noticed that the script was based upon Michael Walker's original screenplay. Having recently seen some of his short work which seems to be doing very well at the moment I wonder what his original screenplay was like?

It took me a while to figure out where this movie was set but I was enjoying it all the way... The actress who plays marta is sexy and... what an alluring accent! I liked the final plot twist, it was totally unexpected and out of the usual "plot twist" hollywood tradition... fun movie.