gmaileatsyourlunch

This is one of those films where I can't understand all the positive reviews. While not without a substantial list of strengths - including Tim Roth's breakout role - it's completely undone by characters who are presented a certain way and then repeatedly act in entirely different ways without any reason or justification. It's as if the writer or director decided several times through the filming, "No, wait, I want this character to be something else", but didn't go back and re-shoot previous scenes to match. I guess these spontaneous and sloppy character turns are being interpreted as "deep" or "art" by some, particularly given its pseudo-philosophical themes of death, but it turned this gritty on-the-run film into something of a pretentious, ramshackle farce I couldn't take seriously. If you're willing to take style over some very questionable substance, you might enjoy this more than I did.

This is an "un-movie" in that there's really almost no plot, no message, no character development (or even insight) and it tests your patience most of the time because it drags on and on. Very style over substance. You can watch the first and last 20 minutes and you really didn't miss anything. About 80% of the run time is droning shots of driving or overly long close-ups of Guy Pierce's scowling face.

The post-collapse world isn't interesting or insightful, and no different than many struggling third-world countries of the present day. Certainly no justification for why Pierce's character is so unrelentingly brooding or why the film is so determined to writhe in its monotonous nihilism and pointless despair. If you told me this was written by a very angry 14-year-old - hoping for the collapse of everything so THEN his parents would see! They'd ALL see! - I would not be surprised in the least.

This is one of those films where it's on the audience to extract some kind of meaning or artistry from it's obnoxious minimalism and four or five lines of dialog. If you like this sort of dross, you'll probably love The Proposition - another Guy Pearce glacially-paced navel-gazer intercut with a handful of gritty action scenes, but mostly panning vista shots or closeups of Pearce' granite jaw line.

When you're going for that Twilight Zone-esque sense of unease and slow revelation, you really have only two options: Either keep it fairly short and contained - as Twilight Zone episodes were due to their television constraints - or knock it out of the park with a reveal that will really wow the audience. A good example is Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

The Vast of Night is a Twilight Zone plot dragged out to feature length and there just isn't enough meat on the bone. So much so that in the last act it descends into cheap gimmicks - people running around in a panic, frantically talking over each other, false urgency, and ratcheting up the score even though nothing on screen warrants it.

The first hour is pretty good with nice 1960s period touches and the two leads do a terrific job inhabiting characters three generations older than they are, but the second half just can't close the deal.