vandreren
Joined Nov 2022
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vandreren's rating
We're immediately dropped in the middle of some kind of military operation - no explanation, no questions asked. We're just there. A GI party, a patrol, a 'requisition' of a family's home in the middle of a neighborhood. The terrified family held in a room and kept quiet. The team has its orders, observe the enemy and wait. Why? We don't know - orders. A sniper keeps a watchful eye on the building across the street; the radio is monitored for updates. The team waits like a coiled snake. But they're not the only ones watching. Men on the surrounding rooftops look in their direction, talking into radios. More and more men enter the building, acting conspicuously casual. For hours they sweat, watch and concentrate. The team knows it's been spotted, knows an attack is imminent but are unable to prevent it. Just wait and stay alert...until all hell breaks loose.
I walked out of the theater dazed, confused and concussed. What did I see, and why? The film made a visceral, kinetic impression on me that buzzed in my head for hours after seeing it. No frills, no sentimentality, no agenda. I've never experienced combat, so I don't know how 'realistic' any war film can be. But I believe the filmmakers wanted to give the audience an unfiltered sense of the raw violence and constant strain of war experienced by those who were there. Not only the combat itself, but its dread anticipation and life altering effects. I also believe there's a tacit undercurrent to 'Warfare.' A sense of the Kafkaesque reality of being dropped in the middle of a strange land to conduct 'warfare,' a sense of inevitability.
The film doesn't preach or proselytize as so many others do. It simply activates and deploys the audience to the story, leading to more difficult questions than easy answers, leaving its mark.
I walked out of the theater dazed, confused and concussed. What did I see, and why? The film made a visceral, kinetic impression on me that buzzed in my head for hours after seeing it. No frills, no sentimentality, no agenda. I've never experienced combat, so I don't know how 'realistic' any war film can be. But I believe the filmmakers wanted to give the audience an unfiltered sense of the raw violence and constant strain of war experienced by those who were there. Not only the combat itself, but its dread anticipation and life altering effects. I also believe there's a tacit undercurrent to 'Warfare.' A sense of the Kafkaesque reality of being dropped in the middle of a strange land to conduct 'warfare,' a sense of inevitability.
The film doesn't preach or proselytize as so many others do. It simply activates and deploys the audience to the story, leading to more difficult questions than easy answers, leaving its mark.
Quentin, Brad and Leo apparently got together to share their collective midlife crises for this one. The shallow artificiality and preening self-satisfaction of these worn out hollywood dingbats is both awkward and amusing. The direction of course is classic Quentin: bombastic, retro-tacky mcmovie kitsch. Worse yet is the shameless profiteering off a hideous crime committed against a pregnant woman and her friend. Which is why this cinematic version of thrown fecal matter is so appropriately titled. Hollywood is the sewer pipe of idiocy and degeneracy to the world. It is the place where taste, class and artistic integrity go to die. Who better to represent it than Q, Brad and Leo, the triune godhead of vapidity, sanctimony and self-absorption.
A silly farce about a "good" psycho who does true essjaydoubleyou vigilante justice by killing only waspy looking middle aged male criminals...in Miami, FL. What are the odds? Dexter would've been worthwhile if it had been a truly dark, semi-realistic exploration of psycho raised by a vengeful cop. Attempting to control his "addiction" by satisfying his urges on equally twisted freaks for the greater good. The moral paradox of evil means to justify righteous ends might have made a rich source of psychological tension. But these hacks running are incapable of such feats. Psychological depth, nuance and any semblance of realism are far beyond them. As a dark comedy it falls flat. As a serious psychological exploration of controlled insanity and the moral conflict of a man's psychotic lust for killing harnessed for the greater good of society, it doesn't even try.