Rebirth

Can anyone tell me what I just watched?

I loved the plot, well the thought of the plot, but am I missing something? I'm certainly not stupid, but the last half of the movie left me more confused than ever.

The end?

This has got to be the strangest film, I've ever seen. However, in this particular case I am not sure that's a good thing. Throughout the movie, you don't really know what's happening which is usually a good aspect. At first, it seemed promising but it ends in an unexpected way. I would say the plot was decent, creative in a way, but the execution was mediocre. I was expecting something entirely different. The ending sucked A LOT, it was unpredictable in a bad way. The downside for me was the way the film ended. You could connect with the movie at some points. The start is pretty good, it shows a promising film. It was such a weird movie that it made me write a review, something that I never do.

At what point do idiots succumb to the nonsense and platitudes that suck them into cults in the first place. Either give in or get out. Stop telling us you're going to do either one and do it. In all honesty I can't tell if this film is anti cult or pro cult. I'm not sure the writer director knows that either. This movie is series of long silly irritating vignettes about the lead, Kyle being pushed and pushed and pushed until he explodes but then gives in. He's a weak weak man who is obviously going going to join. It's simply matter of whether he's seduced or bullied. But it seems like an inordinately large number of people are in on the scam to recruit one dumb guy.

How many movies do we need, with the 'only in a movie' plot of some poor dumb schmuck ALLOWING himself to be subjected to endless UNCONVINCING mind games throughout? The viewer is set up with the idea that the schmuck is going to learn some valuable lesson by the time it's through. But he's a non-existent movie stock character: anyone in real life would catch on that they're being gulled and would yell "you can all go f____ yourselves" and storm out, but this is the character who never does. I did, about 45 minutes in. Anyone want to post a spoiler and tell me if the lesson he learns is how to do that?

This gets an average rating. The plot was extremely good, great acting and there was a wonderful claustrophobic feel to it. Unfortunately, as compelling as it was, the pacing was all off, and I found myself getting bored about three-quarters of the way through. It almost felt as if it could have been an hour long and much more satisfying.

As mentioned though, the acting was really good, and there was some real talent on show; I would hope that some of the names in the film go on to bigger things as the characterisations were fantastic.

It's definitely worth your while to watch it if you've already got Netflix, but beyond that I'm not really sure of its place in cinematic history.