Anthony Damiao

2.5 stars White Noise is a difficult novel to adapt into a movie. It’s not particularly plot heavy, moves at a slow pace (despite the airborne toxic event). It’s more conceptually driven than plot driven. It’s the pseudo-Socratic dialogues that matter. People who say this is a badly written movie would probably say the same about Don DeLillo. It’s supposed to sound stilted and weird. So you can’t put that on the filmmakers. Don Cheadle did pretty well in this movie (but he doesn’t give or know about the gun in the book). The problem is: They stayed mostly true to the plot in the first half, but the bizarre left turn near the end of the movie which sort of cherry picked from the conclusion of the novel sort of stands to undo any meaningful statement about death, suspicion, paranoia and American capitalism that the movie attempted to echo from the book. And if you get rid of or water down the concept (as I said, it’s a concept driven story, not a plot driven story) then you’ve got nobody else to blame but yourself when you find you’re not left with much in at the schmultzy conclusion. Ps. Without spoiling the ending, I’ll only say that the novel makes you expect an ending like this one, then tricks you. The movie makes you expect it, and then.. just sorta goes mmmm..okay have it your way…