4h44 Dernier jour sur Terre

Not with a bang but with a whimper...

The story is about how two particular people would spend their last hours on earth if they new the world was coming to and end at a specific time. The story contains little fanfare and no special effects. It did remind me of a play more than a movie, as was mentioned by another reviewer. The story of the two main actors is interspersed with a variety of spiritual leaders weighing in on such weighty matters as good, evil and the meaning of life. Hard to convey much depth given the brevity of these interviews.

At one point one of the characters decides to visit an old friend and his walk thru the city reminds us all that people are still drinking, hookers are still hooking and most importantly lounge singers are still singing. Nice to know that we would all stay in character right till the end. I guess I better go see that new movie today since the world is going to end tomorrow... It all just seems a little improbable and hollow.

The acting was good but would have been better with a much more well thought out script.

This film must have been pure profit for the makers. I think about 20 percent of it must have been archived footage from around the world. The biggest problem I had with this movie is that it reminded me of a mediocre film school project at best. It tried to be artsy but failed. It tried to be philosophical but failed. It tried to be an emotional tale of a shared ending and failed. It tried to tie all these together with the worst music and sound effects that I have heard in some time. My ears are still ringing. Do yourself a favor and stay away from this one unless you happen to be in the mood to be severely underwhelmed.

No bang, no whimper, just kind of a fizzle...

4:44 Last Day on Earth (2011)

** (out of 4)

Abel Ferrara's look at the final day on Earth centers on an actor (Willem Dafoe) and his painter girlfriend (Shanyn Leigh) as both of them have different emotions on the big day. 4:44 LAST DAY ON EARTH isn't a complete success but it's not the disaster that some people made it out to be. It's pretty strange that with so many stories that could be told about the final day, director Ferrara took a rather bland couple to make a film about. These people basically have sex, talk, paint, fight and try to come to terms with dying. None of this stuff is all that extraordinary and it doesn't even seem like Ferrara wanted to do anything too outrageous. For the most part the film is pretty simple from start to finish and it's quite laid back as well. Those expecting something crazy from the controversial director aren't going to find it here, although we are treated to one rather graphic sex scene. The performances for the most part are extremely good with Dafoe stealing the film but this here isn't anything new. The actor is so calm, cool and collective in the part that the character becomes quite memorable even though he isn't given much to do in the story. Leigh is also good in her part as is Natasha Lyonne and Paul Hipp in their small roles. 4:44 LAST DAY ON EARTH is far from bad but at the same time the entire picture just has a bland feel to it. Fans of the director or Dafoe might want to check it out but others should probably stay away.

This is a film where the title sounds good, but the writing and execution suck. Supposedly something (humanity's destruction of the environment) is leading to rapid ozone depletion and it will disappear at 4:44. At this point the writer, having no idea what the ozone layer is and how it works, says the world will end (though how is never stated). Having totally misrepresented the science (since even with no Ozone layer, life would initially continue and man could adjust, though in 5-10 years the global effects would be bad), the rest of the script goes into a tailspin as well. For a planet where it's predicted everyone will die at some specific time within one-day ... life seems to be getting on pretty well (at least what we can see of it since the scenes all take place in the females apartment so, other than TV shots or the few rooftops shots near the end). I mean come on now, would someone be sitting on a TV show calmly discussing the end minutes before it comes? This movie seems to be more of something shoved together so the directors wife (the female star) could say she was in a movie. Not worth watching.

How would you spend your last days on Earth if you knew the world was going to be destroyed in the morning? That's the premise in Abel Ferrara's (King of New York, Bad Lieutenant) claustrophobic new movie, starring Willem Dafoe and newcomer Shanyn Leigh in where the two play a Manhattan couple coming to terms with their final moments of existence.

Ferrara's choice to shoot the majority of the film in one setting with a minimal amount of takes made me feel as if I were watching a play - not at all a bad thing, especially when the lead actor is Dafoe. This play setting, along with the 'the sky is falling' scenario practically begs for fueled performances to which both Dafoe and Leigh delivered. The actors made the most of their surroundings and turned their emoting skills on high, only occasionally finding themselves being caught in fits of overacting. This is where the movie falters, when the attention pays too much to the acting and not the scenario. Still, the little bursts of over-the- top moments weren't enough to detract me from the movie as a whole.

Fans of both doomsday scenario movies and movies that show close-ups of Willem Dafoe's pubic region should walk away eerily pleased from this one.

4:44 The Last Day on Earth is an existential film by director Abel Ferrara that made me wish he went back to making those video nasties that earned him notoriety in the first place.

The film focuses on a couple in love on the last day of earth just before the planet is about to be destroyed by cosmic radiation. Cisco (Willem Dafoe) is an actor, his wife Skye (Shanyn Leigh) is an artist. They are rather benign about the world coming to an end and accepted their fate which incidentally so has many other people in the planet hence the lack of worldwide panic.

Cisco and Skye make love, they argue, talk to other loved ones, she still paints and they are generally bewildered

Interspersed throughout the film are news clips of reporters, commentators and celebrities who contemplate what the end of the world will be like such as Al Gore and the Dalai Lama.

The film is tedious, grim and empty.