Heftig og begeistret - på sangens vinger

I find quite a bit of value in making an anti-war film. You, as a filmmaker, can possibly change the mind of a viewer or even deliver a detailed argument that is typically not presented in the daily media. I turn towards Michael Moore's film, Fahrenheit 9/11 for an example of this. Moore was successful with his documentary because of two major reasons: 1) he appealed to an audience that already believed what he was developing and 2) he did it with a stroke of originality – it contained your attention. These are two central reasons why Moore's film worked while the Cool & Crazy disaster of a film flopped. To begin, there was no originality or excitement about Jensen's subject (or, most importantly, subjects!). Jensen followed a band of choir members that each had their own opinion of the terror war, what he should have accomplished was to find a central thought or theme. We, as audience participants, found ourselves jumping from one random idea to the next while we intermingled with some recycled songs and toured America. I have no clue what Jensen was trying to overall accomplish with this film. Sure, one could argue that he wanted to show the equality and sympathy of men from outside the American border post 9/11, but that would be a very flawed argument. I say this because of the tangents that each of these choir members sent me on during this film. "Show them (the terrorists) pictures of their grandchildren", "do not fight terrorists acts with violence", "do not be the bully" were some of the points that the Norwegians suggested while others complained about their own war-torn country, that showing emotions is not the best option, and that it is pathetic to drink Lite beer. Do you see the random targets that director Jensen led us towards in this obvious money-driven "sequel"? I ask again, similar to the question that I posed with the original Cool & Crazy – WHAT IS THE POINT?

Was there a lot of popularity surrounding the first film? I understood that it did win some awards overseas, but does that constitute another film plagued with the same inconsistent issues from the first to be created? Jensen learned nothing about what he did right with the first film and what his faults were. It reminded me of a college level student choosing not to take the advice of their professor's changes on a rough draft paper and deciding to turn their final paper in without any suggested changes. Jensen is not a good director, I thought that he was decent with his original documentary, but did not grow with this second feature. I would also go so far as to say that not only is Jensen a horrid director, but he is also a horrid documentary filmmaker. His subject, especially in the first film, had so much strength, passion, and humanity that one would think that Jensen would want to embrace it and fully create a film about the human element. Alas, he didn't do it the first time, what ever would make me think that he would suddenly do it now? Another prime example of being handed a fillet minion and asking for ketchup. You just ruin it for everyone.

Overall, Jensen failed yet again in creating anything of value, anything of virtue, and anything of cinematic relevance. What irritated me so was that he had such a strong cast of characters and individuals that would have normally made for a great documentary, but instead Jensen chose to randomly jump targets causing an irritation of the eyes and a confusion of the mind. The songs were repetitive compared to the original. The anti-war theme was completely muddled by choosing the worst subjects/stories and attempting to create feeble and fuzzy connections. Again, there was a flimsy basis for a decent documentary if Jensen could literally find the "diamond" within the rough, but inevitably it all fell upon the disastrous direction. There should be no reason why a finance company would want to give this supposed director any budget, much less a video camera, to create. If you were as disgusted (or disappointed) as I was with the flaws of the original Cool & Crazy then you will be equally as embarrassed for this film. Everything, I repeat, everything that Jensen did wrong with the first film he magnified it and produced mass amounts of it for this disgrace of a film. If I were to tell you to pass on this film, I would be extremely exaggerating. You, as a member of a cinematic world, should AVOID this film in its entirely. It was that bad!

Grade: * out of *****