Uncertainty - Kopf oder Zahl

This film is about two lost and found stories that lead to vastly different consequences.

"Uncertainty" starts off very promising, with two different parallel plots branching off in a refreshing way. These two plots are separated by colour schemes so the stories are easy to follow despite jumping from one story to another.

The yellow story is an action thriller. It begins engagingly with a lot of adrenaline pumping. However, the thrill and suspense were not maintained. It is not helped by the boredom of the green story dispersed in between, which destroys the momentum of the yellow story. As the green story never goes anywhere, "Uncertainty" is so much better off if they just concentrated on the yellow story as a action thriller.

This film is good. But its different, i watched it with some friends, nobody liked it, other than me. but im kind of an oddball like that. It has two lateral plots, involving the same two leads. I thought using the colors green and yellow to differentiate was original and effective. Joseph Gordon Levitt is great in the lead and shows his range here, while Lynn Collins isn't bad either, but sure is beautiful. I had previously seen her in True Blood and was impressed, but here she takes her acting to a even higher level and leaves you entangled in her character's emotions. I thought this film has a very unique concept, and uses suitable cinematography which wouldn't work in any story, but sure does here. Overall an underrated gem from 09 that only has 329 votes on IMDb... wow...

I put this film because I got a crush on Lynn Collins and think Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a good budding star. I got my money's worth from their performances, in fact I think Collins is more than just looks, but the plot deflating in the family driven sense and the Manhattan sequence advances the tension which constantly stalls for the family sequence. Confused... yeah I was too. I looked up the film's synopsis and it made more sense.

Think of it like this, the 2010 season of Lost. Two story lines inter-cutting based on a slight change in life. I'm not wild about this film, but it deserves attention for the performances from the leads and for being original, which is a rarity nowadays.

JGL on the phone to Chinese gangster. 'We're in the bank on the corner of Canal Street.'

2 minutes later Chinese gangster arrives at bank.

JGL's girlfriend, Caty, in a panic. 'Oh my God! How'd he find us?'

JGL 'I don't know.'

That just about sums up the nature of this film. They really didn't think it through very well. Indeed, it leaves you thinking very clearly that they had no script for this. Just 'make it up as you go along guys' seems to be the rule here and, well, it comes across as just made up.

JGL is good, as he always is, but the rest of the cast went through the movie in 'actor mode'. There is the ubiquitous scene of families all talking at the same time over dinner; out of focus views of twilight in the Big Apple; and a totally unnecessary sex scene. Sure this was all done on a low budget but so was Napoleon Dynamite. I really cannot think of anything positive to say about this film, even though I would genuinely like to do so. One to be avoided folks.

The movie follows two possible outcomes of a single day for Bobby (Gordon-Levitt) and Kate (Lynn Collins). The two stories are almost like parallel universes, featuring the same couple. During the film, we alternate between scenes of both of those "realities". This could have made for a confusing narrative but directors Siegel and McGehee make sure we always know which story we are following with simple devices (primarily, colors and clothing but also good editing choices and writing).

Gordon-Levitt and Collins have amazing chemistry, which is showcased in two very, very different stories. One runs very much like a down-to-earth drama, where they go spend a day with Kate's family. The other story is more akin to an action thriller on a budget, where Bobby finds a cell phone that is valuable to extremely dangerous individuals.

The starting point of the narrative split is a single decision, that is eventually made on a coin toss. The whole film appears to explore the uncertainty (duh) of choices before us and how making a decision will lead us on a path that will, again, lead to more choices. It is good food for thoughts and I could appreciate how the writers went for two radically different stories, to highlight how different the future can be.

Both stories had excellent acting and were well-paced and engaging. Where I had a bit of a problem is with the thriller story, which ended abruptly and was rather unsatisfying in its resolution. Nonetheless, the whole exercise was organic. Lynn Collins was a revelation for me. As for Joseph Gordon-Levitt, this excellent actor keeps on impressing with great performances and solid, off-beat career choices. Many people like to talk about the "curse of child actors" where they disappear as they get older. Gordon-Levitt brilliantly defies this trend and oozes charisma and talent.