Tag: Foreign

The Angel’s Share

“Give me a random foreign movie!” I shouted at the Netflix, not fully understanding how technology worked.

Four hours later, when the program still did nothing, I decided to just search and find one on my own. And thus, a review of The Angels’ Share was born!

This one from Scotland. Sure, not really super foreign, in that they are technically speaking English, but I definitely had to turn on the subtitles to fully understand some of these characters.

Kilts
Get it? Kilts! Foreign movies! A-ha-ha!

Community service seems to be the punishment of choice in Scotland. I can say that, because the beginning of the story introduces us to several different people all receiving several hundred hours of community service for various crimes they have committed and none of them get jail time! Including our…uhh, main character Robbie (Paul Brannigan). Except Robbie maybe should have deserved jail time, for beating up a complete stranger. But his wife Leonie (Siobhan Reilly) is about to give birth, and somehow they argued that his life is undergoing changes and he should be there for the newborn.

Well, Robbie is caught up in a family feud / gang war type of situation. He grew up in a violent world and cannot escape it. Hell, Leonie’s family beat him up when he went to visit his new son, just because of all the trouble he had caused.

But some people give him hope. Like Harry (John Henshaw) their volunteer foreman guy, who helps him out, and tries to reward the crew with good work done, like taking them to a distillery. They soon find out Robbie has a nose for different beverages and a good judge of taste and quality. A very useless talent mostly.

However, maybe alcohol can be the answer to all of his problems? Maybe he can get a real job in the industry? Well, that won’t help too much, because he also has to get out of the area or else he will always be caught up in this violence?

So what is Robbie to do? He needs money fast. So when news of a very rare cask is going up for action, will he succumb to the high monetary gain should he steal it, in order to start his life anew? Or will he, you know, not. Also starring Jasmin Riggins, Gary Maitland, and William Ruane as his community service companions.

Brew
Ah, so bottles are under their kilts. Now it all makes sense.

Seriously, how can these people understand each other? Some characters are just so Scottish. Reminded me of Brad Pitt‘s character on Snatch, nationalities aside.

I will say that after watching it, I am a bit disappointed by the level of comedy in this comedy/drama. My hopes were raised pretty high because the first scene had me almost cackling. But then the humor after it was few and far between. It gave me false expectations so early in the movie, I was left with a sour taste in my mouth.

The entire middle felt pretty slow. The ending was interesting however, but not a lot happened at that point.

So, overall, disappointed with the comedy, but the drama had some interesting moments. Because it is Scottish and there is anger, there are some pretty sweet curses thrown about, reminding Americans that our curses are shit in comparison.

I guess it is okay. Not really something I’d watch again after a viewing, but it was a decent way to past the time. Maybe next time I yell at Netflix, it will find me a movie faster.

2 out of 4.

Exam

Movies that examine the human condition and push “normal people” to their breaking point tend to excite me and scare me at the same time. Whether those are based on real or fictitious events. For example, one of the better known examples of a movie I am talking about would be The Experiment, a fictionalized retelling of the experiment that was actually done with similar results.

That is terrifying.

Exam isn’t based on a real test, but it takes elements from those sorts of psychological thrillers.

Group of People
It could also be considered a bottle epi-uhh. Bottle movie.

Eight people are looking for a job. After passing grueling tests/tasks, none of which are shown or explained, they are the final eight people who are in consideration. There isn’t a lot of knowledge about the job details, but it requires being a leader, making tons of money, and changing their life forever.

We don’t know their real names, each candidate was just given a number, a desk, a paper, and a pencil. One of the candidates decides to call each person by their descriptive name of skin color or hair color and they seem to stick. So we have White (Luke Mably), Black (Chukwudi Iwuji), Brown (Jimi Mistry), Deaf (John Lloyd Fillingham), Asian (Gemma Chan), Blonde (Nathalie Cox), Brunette (Pollyanna McIntosh), and Dark (Adar Beck).

There is one man who tells them the rules, The Invigilator (Colin Salmon).

1) No trying to communicate with him or the guard (Chris Carey) at the door.
2) No spoiling their test.
3) No leaving the room.

They have 80 minutes to answer one question and one question only. Then, you know, the movie plays out.

Candidate
“How does paper even work, really?”

Exam early on was able to keep my interest. There wasn’t a lot of music, it was just people talking and a lot of mystery up in the air. The viewer watching will want to pay close attention to everything going on to try and figure it out before the movie explains it all. It excelled there.

I was disappointed this wasn’t a real time movie. It is 100 minutes long, and an 80 minute test. They had a few minutes before the timer, and a few scenes after it. It would have been so much more creative to just literally give us an 80 minute exam. But no, time was sped up and skipped on multiple occasions, I think creating a more disappointing movie atmosphere.

Secondly? The ending was kind of…well…dumb in my opinion. They will explain everything to you, but even when they do, it still doesn’t make too much sense. It is the result of trying to be too clever and thus potentially just angering your viewers instead of making them feel enjoyment.

So there you go. An okay acted movie, with a lot of build up, but it all just flattens by the end. Still enjoyed the tense moments and human nature, however.

2 out of 4.

Snowpiercer

I first heard about Snowpiercer like a lot of people when I was getting insulted by people with a lot of money.

Despite making boat loads of money in South Korea where it debuted, The Weinstein Company wanted to delay its release in the US, like everything they grab. Why? To make cuts to the movie. The original movie is right at two hours, but Harvey said no, 20 minutes have got to go. Why? So that the film “will be understood by audiences in Iowa… and Oklahoma.” If you don’t get it, that means he is saying that the average American couldn’t handle this film and it has to be dumbed down. You know, to take out some drama and story elements and giving us a shorter film that is much closer to a regular run of the mill action story.

Fuck that. Fuck that so much. That is one of the most insulting things I have ever heard from a movie executive. He says Americans are dumb and won’t like the movie that way. Just how patronizing can a person be?

Well, it turns out, as much as they want because the American viewer cannot do a damn thing about it. The director, Joon-ho Bong, was able to hold out though. After months of arguing, he was able to get the full version released to the American market. The only issue is, it is now limited release instead of wide release. Well, sucks for those guys in shitty markets, but as long as I get the full cut, I won’t be mad.

Lady Fingers
Well, I guess I could still point some blame towards Harvey.

In the future year of 2014, Global Warming is scary. So scientists have made a chemical that can reduce the effects of the gasses and counteract the rise in the temperature. They released too much though, causing the world to go into a very quick ice age, killing most of the life on the planet.

The only survivors are the people who made it onto the Snowpiercer train. It is a perpetual-motion engine so it can run forever. It travels the entire globe and also takes a year to return to a past point. That last part isn’t plot important, just kind of cool.

But life on the train isn’t all peaches and cream. A caste system was quickly formed, with a majority of its inhabitants taking up cramped quarters in the tail of the train. They are fed protein bars and occasionally some kids are taken from them. They have to learn their place. Past riots and attempts to move on have failed. But this time? This time, they are ready.

It will be lead by Curtis (Chris Evans), influenced heavily by Gilliam (John Hurt) an old wise man in the train car. Their plan involves breaking into the train “prison” to release a man (Kang-ho Song) who helped make the security between the cars to help move them through.

Featuring a lot of people, such as Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer, Ah-sung Ko, Ewen Bremner, Ed Harris and Alison Pill.

Clock Rapper
How cold is it? Flavor Flav has turned white!

For those that hate cramped conditions, you might feel a bit uneasy in a movie set entirely on a train. However, for those who like trains a lot, like Denzel Washington or that guy from The Railway Man, this would be the perfect movie for you.

For having an entire film set in a train, they did a real good job of not making it feel incredibly repetitive. The train itself is very long, housing a large number of people with quite a few amenities, so there are several different places we get to go.

I thought Snowpiercer was downright incredibly. It has some powerful themes that are pretty easy to relate too, resounding in the United States with the occupy movement still in recent memory. They aren’t anything new, but I really just loved how it was presented in this movie.

The issue with my review is that I just loved so many aspects of this movie, I am finding a hard time using words to describe just what made this movie so great. From the acting, to cinematography, to the action and drama, to the twists and turns. Just all aspects were phenomenal. Tis a good movie. Glad it didn’t get cut up.

4 out of 4.

The Raid 2

Indonesia must be the most violent place on Earth.

At least it appears that way in movies. I have only seen two now that take place in there, The Raid: Redemption and its sequel, The Raid 2.

The Raid 2 is 150 minutes and a very significant portion of that is action heavy. This movie is definitely not for the faint of heart, as it is violent, gruesome, and just so dang fast. I know I have said that before, but this might be one of the most real examples.

WALLLLT
Things sure have gotten rough for Michael since Lost. Will he ever fine Walt?!

I probably should have watched The Raid again before watching this movie. I really don’t remember much of the plot, since the plot aspects actually were pretty poor in the first film. But this time? This time they want plot. The plot itself is more detailed, with quite a few more characters, some backstories, some personal issues and the like. I guess that is why the run time is so long, to fit all this extra plot in the film. Note: Plot is not the reason to watch this movie.

This takes place right after the plot of the first film. Rama (Iko Uwais) succesfully took down the tower, and is talking to the only supervisor he can trust, Bunawar (Cok Simbara). Well, Bunawar cleans up the leftover messes, despite Rama’s surprise. He wants Rama to join his team, undercover, to help clean up the dirty cops in the city. He refuses. Until one of his family members is killed as a result of his own earlier actions.

Shit. He is in.

So he has to get sent to jail to meet Uco (Arifin Putra), son of Bangun (Tio Pakusodewo), the local crime boss from the area. He needs to infiltrate their organization by befriending the son and hopefully get a list of names of corrupt cops. He knows that one head cop Reza (Roy Marten) is clearly bad, but without knowing the rest, there cannot be a cleanse.

But what ends up happening is Rama gets caught up in a gang turf war between the two rulings gangs, and a third new gang lead by Bejo (Alex Abbad) who wants to make his mark by going straight to the top. Can he survive and put an end to all of the threats?

Also featuring a slew of characters, such as the return of Mad Dog (Yayan Ruhian)! We also get a second in command Eka (Oka Antara), and some very intense hit men: Hammer Girl (Julie Estelle), Baseball Bat Man (Very Tri Yulisman) and The Assassin (Cecep Arif Rahman).

Curved Knife Fight
Basically one of the people is a real life Talim from Soul Calibur!

Technically, this is a bit of a hard film to give any real analysis to, because there are only so many words I know that mean “gruesome” and “fuck yeah violence”. There isn’t much else to say really outside of that for the action. Some of the best action scenes I have ever seen, just a bit cringey at times (note: most times). The first hour or so could have probably been cut some. A lot more plot vs action in that part, although it featured some sad moments. Thankfully the entire movie didn’t take place in prison like I thought it might. Only had two fight scenes in there, although the mud one was a whole tier on its own. Only thing I wish about that scene was making it easier to tell who was who so early in the movie.

I’d like to think if a bunch of white people were caked in mud, I would have an equally difficult time.

This is the type of shit American action movies need to be like. Especially the serious ones. Action on type of action with some little bit of action on the side.

I am curious where the third film is going to go. Apparently it will take place two hours before the events of the end of this film? Initially, that sounds terrible. But oh well, as long as it looks cool while it happens, right?

4 out of 4.

The Lunchbox

I am excited to say that I had the opportunity to see The Lunchbox while traveling to a conference, completely unrelated to movies. It was en route, the right time, and I got to see a movie I most certainly would not have seen at any other time. I sincerely doubt any local video rental store or Wal-Mart would have this bad boy eventually on its shelves later for me to peruse.

This is a movie from India! Out of all the foreign movies I have seen, never had I seen a purely Indian one. Sure, I had ones with Indian actors or whatever, but never set and completely Indian. Basically, I am excited. This is a new step of cinema for me, a man who claims to be willing to watch anything. Bring it on.

Eater
This man? He was also in Life Of Pi, which statistically you probably saw.

This movie features heavily a group of people called the Dabbawalas. This is a delivery service in Mumbai, in which warm lunches can be delivered from a home to the person at work and it will be tasty! Also, restaurants can get into the game too, and send meals straight to their work through this service. Despite gender stereotypes, essentially yes it is the wife at home who cooks the lunch for her husband to enjoy her cooking on the job.

This wasn’t really explained when the movie started, so I thought it was some sort of service where housewives/single ladies randomly cooked food to win over bachelors who had jobs. But no, our main lady Ila (Nimrat Kaur, who looks like the Indian Anna Kendrick to me) didn’t send out that lunch hoping to meet a mate. She has a husband. The excellent meal was meant for him, as he has been increasingly distant as of late and she wants to win back his love.

But it doesn’t go to him. In fact, he doesn’t even notice that what he gets is a different persons cooking. No, it goes to old man Saajan (Irrfan Khan) who is about to retire from his mundane department job after 35 years. His wife past away a long time ago and since then he has been a curmudgeon. But this meal is amazing. Really really good. One Ila finds out her husband has been getting a different meal, she decides to write a note to this mysterious man and see if he knew what was up.

Sometimes, strangers are the easiest to talk to, because you don’t know them and they are not biased. They begin a daily conversation, talking about the troubles in their lives, their dreams and aspirations and of course, love. Ooh, wonder if this will develop at all. That might be bad.

Nawazuddin Siddiqui plays the young gun coming in to replace Saajan when he leaves, and Bharati Achrekar plays Auntie, the upstairs neighbor of Ila who we never see, but only hear. Basically this movie’s Wilson.

Giver
“I sure would like some sweet company, oh, I’m leaving tomorrow. What do you say?” – Ila in a love note.

Awwwww, what a cute movie. Not only was it cute, but the dramatic elements were also decently heavy, so we were dealing with actual serious events and consequences, and not just some frilly romantic fling thing.

And it was decently realistic in the way the events unfolded as well. Assuming the movie itself is actually realistic, I learned a lot about the culture of this city and country. I will assume it is truthful, because I always try to learn cultures from movies and not actual experiences.

Acting was top notch too. So why the 3 out of 4? Well, the ending.

It was done stylistically for the reason, it makes sense sure, I can make all the appropriate assumptions. But I don’t want to. I just wanted my tear up and cry moment. I felt like I was deprived of that moment. Okay. I did have one slight tear up moment, but that was a sad one. Not the happy romance based moment that I am describing up there.

3 out of 4.

Ernest & Celestine

[Editor’s Note: Apparently I watched a German version of the movie, and the movie is actually French. Whoops. Oh well, not changing all of my language specific references. Actually French!]

So, I had no idea that they were dubbing Ernest & Celestine, or else I might have waited a few weeks. But sure enough, end of February, there will be a dubbed version with a lot of big names playing key parts. Forest Whitaker, Paul Giamatti, William H. Macy, and Nick Offerman to name a few. I know those men!

Not personally, but I have heard of them. But I am left with a bunch of German speaking people. Mannn.

Oh well, the reason of course I am even watching this random animated movie, is that it happened to be nominated for Best Animated Film in the Oscars. To me, this was the one real shocker, because I had never heard of it before. But hey, why not give it a shot, it could be surprisingly awesome.

Musical Bear
Shit, it has a bear that can play several instruments at once? Sign me up!

The cool thing about the German language, is at least 20% of it makes a little bit sense when hearing it, if you know English. A lot of cross over words, yo.

This story is about Eine kleine Maus, Celestine, und der grosse Bear, Ernest. I guess the only one you might not know there is grosse, which is big/large.

Celestine was an orphan Mouse, who wanted to draw and be an artist. They were told stories of the big scary bears, but she didn’t believe in them. Ernest is poor, and broke, living on the streets, barely enough food to survive.

Eventually, Celestine leaves her home, and gets a job in the bear city as a dentist intern. When a mouse loses one of their two main teeth, it will mean certain death, and they have started to steal teeth from bear cubs when they put them under their pillows, to help replace them.

Well, she gets punished for not getting a lot of teeth, and now she can’t return until she gets at least fifty teeth! She runs into Ernest, who of course, tries to eat her, but she is able to help him break into a candy shop in order to eat til he is full. They continue to run into each other, helping each other out with favors, until both of their respective communities see their cooperation and are disgusted.

HOW CAN A MOUSE AND A BEAR BE FRIENDS? HOW CAN THEY INTERACT? IT IS DANGEROUS, IT IS WRONG!

Read: Racism metaphors.

But clearly their friendship is a beautiful thing that should be celebrated! Oh, poor Celestine and Ernest, whatever will you do, with the cops coming after you, and a bunch of assholes trying to persecute you for doing no wrong?

Shoulder Talk
Of course he will listen to her, if she sweet talks candy in his ear like that.

I ended up really liking the animation style here. Sure, it looks like a glorified Charmin commercial, and having bears doesn’t help that fact, but it was still very unique and interesting to watch.

The story itself was cute, but also really really straight forward. It had amusing moments, and a couple tense ones, but it is a simple story for kids.

You aren’t going to get Wall-E level storylines here. It is a nice story, a good story, and well done. It just doesn’t take any risks.

Ernest & Celstine is a story that will keep the family entertained for sure, just one that isn’t Best Animated Film of the year material.

3 out of 4.

StreetDance 2

A few months ago, for whatever reason, I decided to watch a shit ton of random dance movies that came out throughout the years, that I of course ignored. These were the non Step-Up movies, basically. I stopped because Battlefield America really messed with my psyche.

But before that abomination happened, I watched StreetDance, a British dance flick from a few years ago that for whatever reason took over a year to make it to the US. It was okay, very Step-Up based plot, but had a lot better music than the other dancing movies so I gave it a a pass. I knew at the time that a sequel, StreetDance 2 already existed, but wasn’t making it to America until over 1.5 years after it was released in the U.K.

Those jerks. Well, today is my day! Come on, mediocre dance movie!

Blindfold
Huh. Blindfold dancing. I wonder if this will be important at all.

Ash (Falk Hentschel) wants to be a dancer. Well, he dances. But he wants to be great. He challenges the Invincible crew who always wins (random dance competition), but while spinning his moves, he falls down and everyone laughs at him.

Everyone buy one man, Eddie (George Sampson) who wants to be his manager? What? That was quick. Yeah, his manager, and he wants to put him as the leader of a crew to challenge Invincible and take em down.

And what a crew they find! During the opening intro to the movie, we see them shuttle all around Europe. They all have clever-ish names too, like… Steph (Stephanie Nguyen), Tino (Samuel Revell), Skorpion (Brice Larrieu), Bam-Bam (Elisabetta Di Carlo), Killa (Ndedi Ma-Sellu) and his son? Junior (Akai Osei-Mansfield), Ali (Ali Ramdani), Legend (Niek Traa), Yo-Yo (Delphine Nguyen), and Terabyte (Kaito Masai).

But besides making the rag taggiest rag tag group of dancers “All around the world!” (re: Europe), Eddie still claims they are missing something. That is because he was in the last movie and knows what’s up. Last movie infused ballet with street dancing. This movie, this movie Eddie wants to bring in some Latin dancing element. So he goes to some big club, and there they meet Eva (Sofia Boutella) and boyyyyyyyyyyyyy can she dance. But can the team accept the fusion? Can Eva? Can her overbearing but wise Uncle Manu (Tom Conti)?

Or will everything work out magically at the last moment?

Fencing
Shit, are they also doing invisible fencing?

Well, I guess all I can do is compare this one to the last one.

It definitely is following the same plot line as the first film, maybe even set in the same world. Dance crew, adding traditional dance element. So that is good. Being similar makes sense in a movie series.

But overall, this one is definitely not as good as the first. The crew is less likable, as there are only 3-4 characters who matter I guess. I only was able to get the whole crew down correctly because I wrote their names during the intro. Most of them didn’t have personalities. Junior? There is a fucking kid on this team? What? Meh.

The music is okay. Still better than a regular dance movie, just not as good as the first. I don’t want to go listen to the soundtrack afterwards.

The ending went as expected. The main chracter is currently most well known as a random bad guy from White House Down. And I guess the dancing was a bit worse than the first film too, with more nonsensical plot moments.

All the words put me towards giving this an overall 1, but it was still okay, and better than a lot more current dance movies. So hey. Take what you will from this.

2 out of 4.

Blue Is The Warmest Color

Lesbians!

Oh boy, did I start this one on the wrong note. I am supposed to be doing serious movie reviews and all. But all I can think about is lesbians, you know, what the movie Blue Is The Warmest Color is about. I guess.

Originally called Adele: Chapters 1 & 2, it was obviously put together to make one longer 3 hour movie, and is really just a coming of age story.

Dinner
Heh. Heh. Coming of age. I get it.

Adele (Adèle Exarchopoulos) is your average French high schooler.

But after finally going on a date with a good looking boy, and giving herself up, she didn’t feel excited, she didn’t feel love, she felt absolutely nothing.

Maybe, boys aren’t her thing? That is when her life begins to change, where she sees the blue haired woman in the distance who captures her fancy. Adele would never consider herself a lesbian, but there is something about this blue haired woman that she can’t get enough of. Well, eventually Adele wanders away from her friends and goes into a lesbian bar, to check it out. She claims it was an accident, but when the blue haired girl actually talks to her and shows interest, she can’t resist.

Emma (Léa Seydoux) opens up Adele to a world she had never really imagined before, opening her up mentally and sexually. Adele will soon realize that even though she is happy, the rest of the world might not be 100% okay with her relationship, and “simple tasks” like telling her parents about it.

Blue Is The Warmest Color clocks in at 3 hours, roughly two 90 minute segments, basically the initial meet of the two, and then a few years into their relationship.

Confusion
I am positive no drugs were taken during this film.

So, right off the bat, I can say this movie felt far too long. It goes over a lot of the detail in her life, her day to day activities, so we get a full picture of what its like to be Adele. Unfortunately, most of that isn’t why I watched the movie. I wanted to see the relationship start, unfold, and maybe even reach a conclusion. I don’t need to see her miserable at a job teaching kids for like, 20 or more minutes of the movie (maybe an exaggeration? It felt like the majority of the second half).

The acting was real and great sure. So was the story.

It is just all the extra fluff and shit that got to me. They could have easily cut an hour or so from this movie, and it would have made it an amazing experience for me personally. So I can say this is a good movie for sure, but not an amazing movie that everyone told me it would be. Shit’s long, yo.

3 out of 4.

The Deep Blue Sea

Stop getting excited this instant. The Deep Blue Sea is a different movie than Deep Blue Sea. Note the The. This movie is not about sharks or shark attacks or smart sharks or Samuel L. Jackson.

No, but it does have something else you might enjoy. The potential for Loki jokes.

Loki
Some would argue that Loki in a bar is a type of shark…

Turns out this movie is actual a remake of a movie that came out in 1955, and when that came out, it was actually topical. Based on a play only a few years earlier.

The story takes place in the 1950s in England. Hester Collyer (Rachel Weisz) has found herself stuck between a rock and a hard place, (or, I guess, the British expression being the Devil and the deep blue sea. That expression is dumb). She is the younger wife of Sir William Collyer (Simon Russell Beale), a judge of the British High Courts. Very stable lifestyle, decently wealthy, but dreadfully boring.

Which is why she becomes infatuated with Freddie Page (Tom Hiddleston), formerly a member of the Royal Air Force during World War II. He is young, and impulsive, and full of sexual energy. That makes sense, of course Hester falls for him, and eventually gets discovered by her husband.

But after leaving her husband, it isn’t just puppies and rainbows. She may regret her choice to follow lust. What is better: stability or affection?

Smokey
Or even reflection, if you are looking into a mirror.

Drama drama drama. This film comes at you with its hardcore stance about drama. There are no amusing moments in it, only dramatic. Of course overall it is a sort of Romance as well. Just don’t come in expecting a lighthearted tale.

The acting from the main two lovers is much better than I expected, only knowing Tom as Loki and a smaller role in War Horse. Who knew he could be such a hopeless romantic and also messed up individual? (Clearly it is all just a ruse, his trickster persona).

The only thing that really bothers me about the movie is that I do find it quite hard to really get in to. The story is a powerful one, probably more powerful though in the 1950s when it wasn’t as popular of a story subject as it is now. Because really, my biggest issue with this remake is that it doesn’t offer anything new. The entire plot line of the story I can kind of see coming a mile a way, I know how it will end, and I know what bad decisions the characters will make.

Knowing a train is going to wreck doesn’t mean you can stop it.But eh, the experience is I guess what matters for movies. The acting is good. The story is tragic. But to me there isn’t enough else going on for me to really enjoy it all.

2 out of 4.

Wrong

Very Wrong.

How Wrong?

This much Wrong.

Wrong is a film brought to us by Quentin Dupieux, who is famous for the movie Rubber. Rubber is famous for being completely absurd, and a strange movie, but I ended up liking it. Knowing that, you should know that he is going for a very similar style to Rubber. So if you hated Rubber, just don’t even try this one.

Rain
Same thing happens to me when I listen to Michael Bolton at work.

Poor old Dolph Springer (Jack Plotnick). Sure, he has a bitchin’ mustache. But he woke up to a very not good day. His dog ran away! Or was kidnapped. Either way, his dog is no longer there, and the world he lives in appears to be quite bizarre. Like his neighbor, Mike (Regan Burns), who goes on daily morning jogs, now refusing to admit to it. He hates running, why would he ever do that?

That isn’t the only thing. Police officers are unnecessarily rude, which might be a normal real world thing. His work office has a downpour going on in the inside, but that is apparently normal too. He might not even work there.

But his dog is missing. That is what is important. Not his conversations with a lady working a new pizza place (Alexis Dziena), or his gardener (Eric Judor). It turns out that the dog may have been taken by a group who randomly steal peoples pets, to make them truly love them. Strange. Yes. But Master Chang (William Fichtner) insists that it makes peoples lives better in the end. Unfortunately, mid kidnapping, the driver got into an accident, and died, and the dog escaped. So the stolen dog is lost.

They hire a private detective (Steve Little, aka Stevie Janowski) to get on the case, and Dolph just has to keep on living.

Typewriter
The hardest thing to believe in this movie is that he would write a novel, on a type writer, by water.

At this point, I am not sure if absurdity is really a film genre, or if I like it. Anyone could come up with an “absurd” movie, and call it art, even if it makes no sense, with weak plot or acting, and just bizarre antics. I am not saying that is a good description of Wrong, but close. I would say Napoleon Dynamite was an absurd movie, and one I dislike for its lack of real plot.

I definitely think I got less out of this movie than with Rubber. Rubber draws you in with the strange sounded plot, and I believe, delivers an even stranger movie. The plot description for Wrong just sounds pointless, and probably the only thing drawing people to this movie is knowing he made Rubber. It definitely has its extreme moments of weirdness, but not enough for me to love the movie. There were some great scenes. I loved the scenes with the Private Investigator. The gardener had an interesting arc, but the ending of it felt a bit weak to me too.

For all I know, the entire movie was just made to troll people. It might be a test to see what people can draw from it, calling it a highly intelligent movie, so that Mr. Dupieux can come out in two years and go “hah, just kidding.” That would be fun.

2 out of 4.