Reviews

It's a pretty funny movie. You could tell Will Ferrell and Sacha Cohen (aka Ali G) and John C. Reilly all had the opportunity to improvise lines and riff on one another, and all three were pretty good.

Ricky Bobby's kids were given some choice lines and nailed home some great (albeit loud and aggro) deliveries. Amy Adams is totally hot. The dad role was well-played. The car action was money and you couldn't quite tell when it was CG and when it was recreated action, so that was good. They did it right.

The overabundance of seeded advertising was acknowledged in the film's dialogue and concretely addressed at the end of the movie (when Ricky Bobby goes sponsorless0 but it was still kind of annoying. I just can't understand how Hollywood blockbusters need more money. They could do the same movie without the extra $$ I think, but in this particular movie, set as it is with NASCAR, it certainly fits in the world we see on screen if there is rampant, colorful advertising.

So it's a good movie, a lot of gut laughs, and not unlike Dodgeball or Anchorman or the like...

This movie is straight pimp. Guns, chicks, chicks with guns, hoes, players, white cops getting spanked by black chicks who carry guns, deals, dopes, drive-bys, cripples and just about everything you want in a movie. Pure visceral fun. If you aren't down for the thrill of this movie go rent a Jimmy Stewart flick and bring your Wonderbread.

What goes without saying is that this movie is in fact "about an unlikable, bigoted, arrogant loudmouth who kills a lot of people indiscriminantly."

So why does this move succeed?

We can see the main character as an anti-hero. He is an extrapolated example of some of the more lively rogues that exist in life. It is a documentary-style production, so the point of the movie is to key in to Benoit's understanding of the world. We are provided a biographical account of this fictional character and are left to appreciate, for its superior craftmanship, the more broad-stroked, baser emotions of human nature.

He isn't redeemable -- no one in this film is -- and because that note is played so purely throughout the production it removes the doubt involved as to whether or not this character is to have a "point." He doesn't, he is irredeemable as an individual.

To me, the movie lived up to itself in several ways:

1) the character was unrepentant and unchanged until the end

2) the film crew, such as is perhaps considered a modicum of

intelligence and reason, is starkly revealed to be but made of the most hideous instincts; to rape and murder and cry false tears.

3) the acting of the main character (also a writer/director) was indeed, perfect. His character was very consistent and his range went from serial killer to drunken joke-telling barfly, to petulant, naughty child.

4) i swear i know people like the main character, but without the killer bit.

5) it is a Film de Belgique and not French. A different sort of thing.

6) he speaks bad poetry, and kills people

7) in the end, people get shot

8) the violence is unsettling and random, which is precisely what real-world violence is (and therefore a cinematic "whats the point?" question is easy to answer: the violence is used to shock and make aware)

There's few things more satisfying in life than to watch such a film as this, where an idiotic serial killer gets to expound his racist, homophobic, xenophopbic, base-level and ego-filled views comedically throughout a film in which he kills maybe 100 or so people, most by blasting them with a handgun. Few things are spared in the killer's appropriation of his world, which is what makes this so great. Silly, entertaining and quick-witted, yet crass, tacky, and jokey; our main character draws the filmmakers into his world as victims and perpetrators just as real life archetypes (less dangerous) of this type of personality draw sychophants and suckups to gather in all the yuck-yuck stories and live for the experiences.

Well, if that's too high-falutin, what you should at least get out of it is that the film crew are dupes and suckers who'll do anything to get a story or to follow someone with wits and character in more abundance than themselves.

This leads to two (at least) different sound men getting shot by the serial killer in the movie, and then later the remaining crew members join in on a "Clockwork Orange"-style rape/murder scene, delectable in its sickness.

A theme for the movie comes with this song, from an incontinent hospital mate (after he goes down in a boxing ring): "I sh**t for nights, I s**t for days, I s**t all over, I s**t always!" and this line "You sure raise a stink over a crap!"

At a birthday party for the killer, he gets a holster as a present. He practices pulling his gun out of it, and then plugs the guy who's throwing the bash for him. Everyone remains silent, disappointed by his boorish behavior. He pays no attention, and asks for more champagne. Finally the stunned dinner guests, conveniently forgetting the murder (one of them has blood spattered on her face) bring him the rests of his presents, finish eating the birthday cake, wrap up the victim and take the body to the quarry where they've been dumping the bodies.

Towards the end, he is watching his moves on a steenbeck. He has become the director, and the crew follows him. The lead is also apparently the guy who directed the film, Quite genius, then. Have to hand it to him. This movie even has bad poetry, intended as such.

There are so many funny moments in this movie, its hard to compare to many others. And check out the pre-Blair Witch ending....