Rondo

Even before its international premiere at Fantasia, "Rondo" was creating mumblings among reviewers who had seen it in the screening room. At the debut, the normally raucous Friday night crowd was uncharacteristically quiet. Then "Rondo" unleashed its singular form of magic. I was very impressed at not only its vitality, violence, and humor, but also its incredible audacity. The director, Drew Barnhardt, started this project with the intention of making, without compromise, the movie he wanted to make. He succeeded spectacularly.

Stylistically, much of Rondo works like Peter Greenaway at his most "ZOO"-ily formalistic. Scenes are designed more like paintings than real life. That's not to say that the action is missing, but more that Barnhardt knows what he wants us to look at, and goes to great lengths to make us do so. The candy-noir of Dennis Hopper's paintings springs up again and again. Then there's the story itself. "Rondo" doesn't so much have narrative twists as narrative convulsions. Ultimately, the finale is the one that we necessarily had to reach, but the path there is like having our arm twisted behind our back (but, paradoxically, pleasantly so). In "Rondo", baroque verbiage and baroque violence come together in a celebration of blood-sodden deadpan.

-GDE

Wow! Worst revenge movie ever. Could have been so much better. Short, blank expressions and explanations made this a joke. How inept are these people? Do a rewrite folks

I had to go back and read what The first reviewer on the list wrote as I must have missed the part where he was given a drug which induced the hallucinations he was supposed to experience had three goes at that, he must have seen another version anyway back to what I saw Do we really need more films about sick people torturing and killing others I don't think so. Exploration films have a place most belong in the trash bins. having said that don't get any ideas about me being narrow minded I am up for most anything but I am amazed when at the end in the credits was a message Thanks For Watching should have read thanks for lasting the distance it was heavy going but had a satisfactory ending (I liked it anyway) all in all a disturbing film one that I will file away with Tusk and a couple of others. If you enjoyed this you need to see someone Al Watts

I wanted to like this film, I really did. The 50's inspired pulp poster was great, the cinema was packed with a pumped-up audience & the director was there. The movie started with an original, interesting premise but petered out 2/3 of the way through. What started as a cool, weird mystery ended as a shoot 'em up blood bath and no satisfying conclusion. By the time it was over I was dying to get out as fast as possible. Could have been so much better.

This is purely an assumption on my part, but I bet the director grew up with exploitation movies. I do enjoy it when they use what they've learned from them to make something unique.

Now, as the subject line suggest, this might go a bit far for some... most people. If a movie ever needed a parental guidance page, this is it. There's extreme sex, drugs, a lot of alcohol and we are in no way protected from seeing the results of the quite horrific violence. So, beware. Oh yeah, the there's smoking. That being said, if you don't mind all of this, I think you'll enjoy this movie.

It looks great for it's budget. You sort of know where it's going at all times, but not quite. It always manages to go just a little bit further. This is exploitation, so it's all about eliciting strong reactions, but the movie manages to use those shocks to construct something very memorable and interesting.

This definitely isn't a date movie. You really need someone as dead inside as myself to enjoy this, but for those few of us, this is definitely worh seeking out.