RJBurke1942

Ostensibly, this outing is offered as a quest across Algeria to find and kill a notorious terrorist, Abou Leila. The Algerian countryside and deserts are certainly the locale for most of the story; the central question, however, is whether the story is truly about Abou Leila or ... something else.

It starts with a bang, in fact quite a few as we see two men in the front seat of a car - and with the camera behind them, we cannot actually see their full faces - on a suburban street somewhere, watching a man with a briefcase exit a house further along the road. He unlocks a nearby car and proceeds to get into it; but a woman comes out of the house and, from her door step, begins talking to the man waiting at the car. We cannot hear what is said, and she returns inside and closes the door.

At the same moment, the passenger in the other car gets out and begins walking towards the man now getting into his car, while also starting to pull out a pistol. As he gets nearer, another car enters the street, perhaps a hundred metres away and behind him. The man hears the car and stops, hiding the pistol, to allow it to pass - a police car, in fact.

As the police continue on, the man then rushes up to the car and pumps three bullets into the man now in the driver's seat. The woman opens the house door again, and watches, aghast. As the shots ring out, the police car does a quick u-turn and with siren blaring approaches the shooter, now covering up behind the car door, and stops twenty or thirty metres away. A gun fight begins, some seconds pass, then the shooter starts running back to his car still firing at the police car, and....

Cut to black screen and the words, in blood red: Algeria, 1994.

Then ... jump cut to Algerian countryside, burnt by the sun, a boxy off-road 4WD travelling on a two-lane blacktop, two men in car, one asleep and other watching the road and his companion, pensively. Here, we now see the two main characters: Lotfi, driving (Benouari) and S., asleep (Salem). They are driving to find Abou Leila....

What follows, however, can only be described as a road trip that includes magnificent vistas of deserts and mountains; sporadic and puzzling narrative ellipses; implicit allusions to the gunfight at the start; seemingly incongruous moments of unaccountable, gruesome blood and gore and blood-soaked severed limbs; a large and often confusing cast of other characters; a hugely puzzling story; but, as with all good narratives, a denouement that brings us back to the beginning.

What's actually going on? Well, it seems to me that the underlying premise of this story has been used a few times in movie history, most notably in one of those from David Lynch - though with more style from Lynch than this offering has. But ... despite the very slow pacing as we traverse stark interminable deserts, by car and on foot, viewers who have seen some or all of Lynch's movies might enjoy this effort.

The setting and photography are more than adequate to convey the heat, loneliness, desolation and dangers of desert existence. In perhaps an unfair comparison, though, it's not up to the standard in David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962). On the other hand, it is a well produced, directed and acted story.

Recommended for adults only. Give it six out of ten.

I missed even knowing of this movie until very recently. My loss for sure because it's a finely crafted mystery that kept me highly alert, watching and listening carefully for clues. And still, I missed it....

The story centres upon the disappearance of a toddler, a 4 year old girl from her mother's home. As viewers, we enter this mystery with Casey Affleck as private investigator Pat Kenzie and his female side-kick Michelle Monaghan as Angie Gennaro.

The police are already involved in the disappearance but not progressing sufficiently for the mother, Helen McCready (Amy Ryan) and her brother, Lionel (Titus Welliver). Hence, she has asked the two private eyes to get things moving more to her satisfaction.

Which they do, even though the police, naturally, are not too happy about their continued presence. The lead detective, Remy Bressant (Ed Harris) is not impressed with the PIs lack of experience; while his boss, Jack Doyle (Morgan Freeman) just wants Bressant to get a result - like yesterday.

Things worsen for the cops when our PI heroes get mixed up with a local drug boss, Cheese (Ed Gathegi), mainly because Helen, the toddlers mother, has stolen $130,000 from Cheese when a drug deal was busted by the cops. Hence, suspicion falls upon Cheese that he has kidnapped the child as hostage to recover his money.

From here, best you just savour the quickened pace of the movie as more ugly truths and lies surface to muddy the mix even further.

The performances are uniformly - no pun intended - adequate, especially with stalwarts like Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris. Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan are both up to the task also. Ben Afleck does a good directing job.

Some might argue, however, that the resolution of the mystery is utterly contrived and even beyond suspension of disbelief in a fictional story. I don't agree with that outlook - as the saying goes, truth is often stranger than fiction. Watch carefully and listen for those clues.

Recommended for adults. Give this one eight out of ten.

Interestingly, a prior movie, Fury (1936) presented a similar scenario about a man wrongly accused of committing a similar crime as in this story. But two different stories by different writers, however; and very different outcomes. If you can find a copy of Fury, it's well worth your time.

Anyway, I recall seeing Sound of Fury when I was around ten, on a Saturday afternoon matinee at the local cinema.

I recall being quite upset when I watched it; I recall also the two main actors, the reserved worker, Frank Lovejoy (Howard) and the flamboyant, arrogant conman, Lloyd Bridges (Jerry) - such a brilliant contrast of characters, even then at ten. Thereafter, I followed both actors in subsequent movies.

Of course, I did not follow this story very well at that age, but the final fifteen minutes or so riveted me to my seat, never to be forgotten. Hence, when I saw it recently again, I felt an odd mix of the same emotions from over seventy years ago.

Briefly, Howard (Lovejoy) is reluctantly enticed by Jerry (Bridges) to embark on a life crime because he has no job. Eventually, Jerry commits a truly heinous murder of a young man and forces Howard to help dispose of the body. When they are arrested for the murder, they are held at the central police station under heavy guard, awaiting trial.

Soon, though, the local media whips up citizen anger about the murder and eventually a mob begins to congregate at the cop shop, demanding justice. Without doubt, this story and production still ranks with me as a superb exposition and critique of how the media (and authority) gave the base aspects of American culture an opportunity to overwhelm due legal process.

The pacing and dialog are appropriate, the acting is superb, and the finale is a tour de force in editing and directing.

I think Sound of Fury should have won awards. Maybe the topic revealed much more than the producers were expecting in those times? Simply because it viscerally displayed a hard truth that many preferred to keep in the background, out of sight, even then.

Eight out of ten for this excellent production.

Recommended for adults, young and old.