Noise

David Owen is as mad as hell and he's not going to take it anymore. What he's mad about is car alarms. Car alarms that go off in the middle of the night, or when he's trying to put his colicky baby to sleep, or when he's making love to his wife, or when he's just this close to grasping a particularly dense passage in a treatise by Hegel. After years of putting up with this ubiquitous urban din and vainly pleading with the authorities to do something about it, David finally resorts to vigilantism, smashing out the windows and dismantling the alarms of the offending vehicles, even going so far as to leave a calling card in his wake identifying himself as The Rectifier. Soon the mysterious noise-fighter has achieved near folk-hero status among his fellow Manhattanites and become a true thorn-in-the-side to the city's unctuous mayor, played amusingly by William Hurt.

Sort of a dark comic, upscale version of "Taxi Driver," "Noise" is a rage-against-the-machine fantasy that chooses as its target the relentless cacophony of city life. David, who's a successful attorney in his day job, isn't quite as off the rails as Travis Bickle, but there are times when his obsessiveness begins to border on the psychotic. Is David suffering from mental illness or is he simply acting out against the impotency and inadequacy he feels in all areas of his life? Or does he just get off on hating and being angry all the time? Whatever the underlying psychological reason, once he establishes himself as The Rectifier, David develops a whole new outlook on life. And who among us can't identify at least to some extent with David's frustration, for don't we all have something that forever gets under our skin and that we would do just about anything we could to get it to stop? David just happens to be the one person to actually act on that impulse.

Written and directed by Henry Bean, "Noise" is a satire of metropolitan neuroticism performed in a minor key. Tim Robbins carries the film with his understated portrait of a man wound up so tight that he threatens at any moment to completely unravel. He receives solid support from Bridget Moynihan as the wife who can't understand why the man she married has suddenly turned into a raving lunatic, and Margarita Levieva as an attractive newspaper reporter who uncovers The Rectifier's true identity and wants to explore what really makes this explosive man-of-the-people figure "tick."

The humor isn't always as uproarious as it could be, but everyone, not just city-dwellers, should find something to appreciate in David Owens' amusingly extended rant.

Pardon the pun noise I am about to "audiolize" in this film review of the dark dramedy "Noise". Sorry if I am being too pun noisy. "Noise" stars Tim Robbins as David Owen, a New Yorker with a wife & a kid who is fed up with all the city noise mostly of car alarms and secondary beepers. Therefore, he embarks on a vigilante venture and wrecks the cars with alarms sounding off. Do not get alarmed but Owen becomes so obsessed with this that he actually creates an alter ego in him called "The Rectifier". But "The Rectifier" does run into obstacles in his "noise off crusade" by being arrested twice and irritating those in city government most notably the New York Governor. So it becomes quite a "David vs. Goliath" show for poor David. Even though when he does get arrested, not one accuses him of being "The Rectifier". Consequently, Owen's madness does create some domestic noise in his family life when his wife Helen leaves him and her daughter Chris starts to have problems in school. Owen tries to rectify his domestic problems but to no avail. Owen then meets a free spirit woman named Ekaterina who joins in The Rectifier's cause and helps him think of some political avenues he could take to fully solve the noise problem. And she even invites David to partake in some bedroom noise, which of course he has no problems with. Writer-Director Henry Bean's film is a very enticing one, and I do have to give him props for the originality of it; but Mr. Bean here was pretty much silent in developing a compelling plot structure, in both the writing & directing. Tim Robbins was commendable as Owen but the sporadic overacting did not deserve a buzz as one of the premier acting performances of the year. The supporting performances of William Hurt as Mayor Schneer, Bridget Moynahan as Helen Owen, Margarita Levieva as Ekaterina, and Billy Baldwin as the Mayor's Chief of Staff were of mediocre thespian noise quality. The premise and message of "Noise" is an important one, but too bad it got caught up in an "over the top" plot line which tempted me at times to turn off the "Noise". *** Average

I suppose there are lots of people who believe that their lives are full, interesting, deep and would make a good movie.

I also suppose that anyone who thinks so is wrong. Here's one. Some dullard got arrested for breaking into a car to disable its alarm. He then thought he could make a meaningful movie about it and somehow got it financed, with himself as writer/director.

The backbone of the story is this guys obsession, which boils down pretty much to anger management. Tacked on are two other story lines, one about a smarmy major. They must have had more planned and possibly shot here because he is played by William Hurt. The other side story is about a woman he spends time with after his wife kicks him out of the house.

In a competent writer's hands, these three threads could have been done well. As it happens we have some charming women in weak roles. María Ballesteros has a riveting 30 seconds with a talk about bodily imperfection. Its an almost Mamet segment about inner angels. But the rest of this is a huge waste, just noise.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

This is an interesting idea for a movie, as it deals with a situation we can all relate to: who hasn't, at least every now and then, faced the frustration of being awakened by a car alarm that goes off for no obvious reason in the middle of the night? Here, David (played by Tim Robbins) decides to do something about it. He becomes "The Rectifier" - a guy who goes out and does battle against all kinds of noise - mostly car alarms, but also burglar alarms on buildings, leaf blowers, etc. He smashes cars and windows and becomes a sort of vigilante hero in the process.

This is an interesting study of obsession. David - as is pointed out in the movie - has a strange connection with noise. He both hates it and he loves it. He won't take the simple solution of moving to a quieter area, and in fact - after his obsession leads to him losing his family when his wife walks out on him - moves to a noisier neighbourhood. In that sense, this is about more than noise. He feels powerless to do anything, but as a vigilante he finds a way to give himself a sense of power. In a way there's also an interesting reflection on addiction. How many people simply can't get away from something they're addicted to even though they know there are serious consequences involved? Had the movie chosen to treat this more seriously - even if done, as it was, with a certain comic undertone to it - it would have been even better. Unfortunately, there were some problems with the story and how it was told.

Essentially it begins with David being identified as The Rectifier by a reporter who wants his story, so it mostly gets told in the increasingly cliché flashback style. The movie also weakens significantly when it introduces the petition angle - David decides to go for a petition to put an initiative on the ballot to ban car alarms. The fun of the movie was in him working outside the system, although I recognize the irony that ultimately came from this when the system was used against him to crush the ballot initiative. Still, David was far more interesting as a vigilante. There are also too many unnecessary characters who entangle David in unnecessary relationships (for example, the threesome served no plot purpose that I could discern!) and ultimately distract from the movie's basic point.

Nevertheless, this is both interesting and relevant to modern viewers - and their ears, even if the story might have been better told. 7/10

Yes it's a movie about a man's frustration with urban noise, but you don't have to be noise sensitive to be engaged by his frustration with something over which he has little control or power. The movie is about how a man works through his rage at feeling powerless, exploring different modes -- impulsive, destructive, productive, etc. So if you've ever been up against anything, you can feel for the guy. Its also clever, funny, playful, quirky and very, very refreshing. It's an urban parable and a bit of a cartoon -- think of your next door neighbor as a slightly deranged hooded avenger -- but has a feeling of truth.