Chris Farmer

This is an awful film. No, not because it’s quirky, and not because it lacks realism, and certainly not because of its politics, which are ultimately quite banal. To understand why this film is so bad one must consider the thesis that in the great work of art every detail is deliberate, each component serves a purpose. In the song there are no misplaced notes; in the poem each word is carefully chosen; in the film every line and every scene serves the film as a coherent whole. This movie is the exact opposite: a random hodgepodge of things the filmmaker evidently thought were neat or fun or cool or whatever. Who are these characters and why do we care about them. What are their relationships really? None of it is clear, and the lack of clarity does not serve any kind of subtlety or sophistication. It’s all a rather coy attempt to create an utterly false sense of intrigue surrounding a perfect mythological speech by a perfect incorruptible mythological man single-handedly saving the nation from fascists, and would-be tyrants. I won’t say the acting was bad, though the characters are utterly lifeless. It seems rather that the direction is bad, very bad, because the filmmaker has no clear idea of what film he’s trying to make. One gets the feeling that David O. Russell wrote what he believed to be a great speech, got a great actor to deliver it and, knowing that wasn’t enough to make a movie, put a bunch of other stuff around it to fill in 2+ hours. The epitome of self indulgence. I watched this film during a 12 1/2 hour transatlantic flight and even in the context of severe boredom and extremely limited entertainment options I regret not turning it off after the first hour.