Timecrimes

I love many time-travel movies, and this one seems very clever and tightly plotted at first, especially while you are watching it and figuring out how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together very nicely. But there is one big problem that others have already pointed out:

The things that he does mostly make no sense, and most of the movie is spent having him repeat these things that make no sense the next time he goes around the time loop, just so that the events in the first time happen the way he remembers them. And that's not clever.

I can do this easily by making up a simple example: Joe is sitting in his living room and sees a dead bird thrown through his window, he goes out to investigate, falls into a time-machine into the past, then when he sees himself in the living room, he kills a bird and throws it through the window so that he will go out to investigate. The End.

Not very satisfying is it?

There are elements that make this movie entertaining, especially the dark way that he solves the final problem and the fact that there are three versions of himself running around trying to make or stop things from happening, but otherwise, it's just an extended version of my story.

Quite often, time-travelling films are too pompeous and full of complex moral dilemmas. This treasure has nothing of a sort. It is, finally, a story about "little man" in unusual circumstances of time travelling. A man, who isn't very bright, who isn't destined to save the world, who isn't parcticularly "good" or "bad". This - this is what I genuinely enjoyed whatching. There's no higher power behind all of this, nor great or malicious power - no, the hero is driven mostly by his own actions, worldview and lack of rationality. Because of that, more interesting things become when he starts falling into the bottomless pit of wrong choices, inevitable circumstances and despair. Hector is very much usual - and that's what makes the story so tense and interesting.

It's essentially a rewrite of Robert A. Heinlein's 1941 short story "By His Bootstraps".

This movie proves what Hollywood does not practice. A great movie (like this one) does not need: famous name actors, good-looking/sexy protagonists, stupendous sets, expensive special effects, gratuitous violence, & violent shocks to be a successful, entertaining, and provocative movie, which this is in every respect. All it needs is good writing, capable direction, plausibility in terms of premises and plot turns, and decent acting. This has it all. And it's a great movie. The actors are all average looking. The sets look like a normal environment. The special effects are nothing special at all. And yet, there is not a dull moment in this extraordinarily good film. Saw it at the Cleveland International Film Festival this year. It stood out from the crowd as an exceptional film

This is a fun movie. It explores time travel in an interesting way, making one big consistent whole. While movies like Primer have more convoluted plots, this one is simpler. It explores the events within timeline in a way that menages to reinterpret them and is an interesting conceptual work. Though somewhat predictable, it still menages to be fun and thought provoking. There are not really any plot holes except that main character acts somewhat in fear of not ruining what he knows happens, at least at first, which is somewhat dubious, but the consistency is preserved. What would happen if he tried to subvert it is not explored, but still, a solid work and an unexplored angle. Less ambitious than Predestination, and at a lower budget, but delivers similar experience if in more low key way, which is sometimes sweeter, in a way small but clever films can be.