24 July 2013

Wrong Review - CineKatz Not-So-Secret-Santa in July Project

So as part of the Cinematic Katzenjammer's Not-So-Secret-Santa project, I got assigned the film Wrong and boy is was hard to watch. There are 2 reasons why it was so hard, firstly, it was hard for me to actually find the film since it hasn't been released in the UK yet, this is probably the only time that I've had to watch a film on YouTube. Secondly is that the film is incredibly boring, trying to be all artsy but completely failing.
The plot of the film concerns a person called Dolph who wakes up to find that his dog has disappeared and all the strange events that take place when Dolph tries to find the dog. Now the film bills itself as a surreal comedy and this sort of premise should lend itself well to comedic purposes but the film is way too focused on shoving as many surreal ideas down my throat that it ends up getting incredibly boring. The problem is that a lot of these elements do not work, things like the closeted jogging, the office where it constantly rains and the constant telepathic stuff. In isolated bursts, these could be funny but they keep coming back again and again and just when you think the film is going away from the surreal, something even more insane happens. This ends up making the film incredibly boring to watch as the surreal stuff in the film just wore me down after a while. The other sub-plots in the film meanwhile just end up feeling like padding to make the film even longer, mainly the subplot regarding Dolph's gardener Victor and a pizza delivery phone operator and the ending of that plot just highlights how insane the whole film is.

This also isn't helped by how the main character acts throughout the film in that he never once acts like how a person would act. I mean, in one scene, someone he was told had died shows up at his house and he doesn't even mention the character dying. This isn't helped by the performance from Jack Plotnick which is really bland and forgettable until the final scene in the film in which he finally acts like a human being, but by then it's too late. The other performances in the film aren't much better though, most of them being incredibly boring with the exception of Eric Judor who brings some humanity to his role as Victor in the relationship subplot and William Fichtner who just goes all out in his role and whenever Fichtner is on screen is the closest the film comes to actually working.

The technical side of the film is pretty bland. While I respect the fact that Quentin Dupiex did most of the technical elements of the film, a lot of it is pretty mediocre, especially the direction and cinematography with these elements only getting really good in the last few minutes of the film. The worst technical element though is the music which is just a really boring droning sound, which helped contribute to my overall boredom while watching the film.

Overall, this film is pretty bad and is a good sign to me as to why I don't try and seek out more films like this. The surreal tone of the film is executed so badly that the film ends up incredibly boring and the times when all of the stuff in the film works take up 5 minutes of a 90 minute film. I thank the person who 'gifted' this film to me as it's something I wouldn't normally see but I really didn't like this film. Not even the brilliance of William Fichtner can save this film and that in itself shows just how bad the rest of the film is.

My Rating: 1/5

4 comments:

  1. I'm sorry you didn't like the film. I haven't seen it myself, but Quentin's last film, Rubber, was very interesting. It's a shame that even Fichtner can't make it enjoyable.

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  2. That sucks you didn't like it. I loved it and wanted to spread the word... if it's any consolation, I didn't really like the one I got either...

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    1. Well for this film I have the same reaction I had with A Field In England (which I would recommend to you, seeing as you loved this film) in that I can understand why some people didn't like it, but it just didn't work for me, although this didn't have the excellent performances that made A Field In England worth watching for me.

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  3. If it's from the guy who made Rubber I could have warned you. Your review could equally apply to that film. I will make sure to miss this, in spite of the presence of the always good William Fichtner.

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