The Big Bang

I'm not quite sure how to rate this movie. It's very well made, with excellent (if somewhat typecast) acting from all involved. The direction shows a real sense of style, making bold use of color, hue, saturation, surreal environments, and dream-like sequences... yet all of these seem directly lifted from a David Lynch movie. Indeed, the director has even produced a Lynch movie (Mulholland Drive). The dreamy yet rocking score from Johnny Marr really gives life to the movie, yet constantly sounds like lost tracks from Achtung Baby, the U2 album. And then there's the story. I love the story, but I loved it even better when it was a Wim Wenders movie called Until the End of the World.

This movie is pure plagiarism, right down to the soundtrack (Johnny Marr, what happened?!), but it's excellently made. As an unauthorized and uncredited American remake of Wim Wenders' awesome 1991 movie, there's both a lot to love and a lot to hate.

Someone should be facing a lengthy legal battle right now, and it's a shame, because this movie is so well done. Maybe next time the director will find his own vision, instead of plagiarizing his idols.

A private detective (Antonio Banderas) is hired to find a missing stripper. A simple job turns complicated when everyone he questions ends up dead.

I can imagine Antonio Banderas looking at this script and weighing in his mind if he wants it or not. Then he gets to the sex scene, and he says, "I'm in." (And I have been told he helped in casting Autumn Reeser, so this makes it even more likely.) The script is interesting, sometimes a bit bizarre, but for Banderas that is the clincher, for sure. Other than that, despite being the main character, he is actually the least interesting part of the movie.

The press release compares the film to "Sin City" and "Big Lebowski". I can see "Lebowski" somewhat, but agree completely with the "Sin City" comparison. That was actually the first thing I thought of after a few minutes of analyzing the style. The film uses odd angles (sometimes to a dangerous extreme) and saturated colors. I thought in many scenes the backgrounds were even more beautiful than the foregrounds or the people in them.

What to say about the physics angle? I have seen many complaints online from people who say the plot was not about physics and that the same story could be told with a different topic. I raised this to director Tony Krantz and he made a clear argument that physics is not just central to the plot, but the very plot itself. If you did not get this, I recommend giving the film a second view.

The Snoop Dogg claim was deeply philosophical, but I feel it was not properly explored. Is sex with men just one after another with no real difference? And whether yes or no, how does this fit into the film's overall message? I do not know, but for whatever reason -- perhaps my background in philosophy and women's studies -- this line jumped out at me.

The supporting cast is also impressive. I mean, Sam Elliott and James VanDerBeek? Incredible. Autumn Reeser truly a joy. Elliott was actually a bit weaker than usual (I think he works best when his role is minimized) but I can never say no to him or his mustache.

I do have to call out Banderas' accent. As one reviewer wrote, "Antonio Banderas's mumbling was mostly unintelligible." I would not be so harsh, but the fact remains that I missed many of his lines because he could no deliver them. I can understand Puss in Boots from "Shrek", so I know he is capable of speaking clearly... this is my only real complaint.

Pick this one up. Great film, very good twists and turns, with a blend of intrigue and sex that will grab your attention. The DVD and Blu-Ray has a few features on it, and if you are the type who loves audio commentaries (I do), director Krantz will provide you with more than a fair share of background...

Some very good acting (especially from Sam Elliot), an unusual script filled with sometimes strangely funny references to cosmological and particle physics, and a jazzy style of direction lead to an inexpensive, yet engaging "private detective" story. Antonio Banderas' Latin, fish-out-of-water accent (the detective) initially seems odd for such an iconic American role, but in short order, it just blends-in with the many other off-center characters and events that populate the film.

It's flaws are irrelevant and understandable considering its limited budget and shooting schedule; it's a refreshing hour and a half of entertaining stuff that smartly never takes itself too seriously.

This movie is far from being perfect. It is also far from being one of the worst movies I have seen, like some reviewers claim.

The movie delivers quite nicely in several areas: It kept me entertained throughout the full length of it. The cinematography is daring and plain beautiful. The acting is alright, but nothing special. The combination of film noir with very modern imagery and dialogue was weird but interesting to see. The whole woven in metaphorical lines and puns (look at some light effects in the bar!) about particle physics were funny and entertaining to me (but then again, I am a physicist...). But they did not really help the plot or the characters and seemed a little unmotivated and far fetched.

I have to admit though that the storyline of the movie seemed a little half-baked. Take a cup of David Lynch weirdness, a few spoons of sciency talk, a bit of crime genre love story and a few twists and turns for the viewer. No, this does not give you a good story if mixed together. It gives you a strange movie unlike any other. And if it wasn't so well made, this movie would really have sucked given those ingredients.

Overall, I can say that the movie was entertaining, mainly for its stylish mood and look, but nothing that I would recommend as a must-see to my friends.

The Big Bang, although imperfect, is a well made, valiant effort from relative newcomer Tony Krantz. It welds together several recognizable genres for a dazzling technicolor coat of a flick, with one of the most interesting troupe of actors, all non type casted, in the last decade or so. You have the noirish detective yarn, the hard bitten postmodern crime thriller, and something unique as well: a constant running theme of physics, evident in both the snappy scientific jargon the actors get to chew on, and the dazzling, neo noirish color palette ranging from eye popping purples to smoky deep blues. Antonio Banderas ditches the strong silent shtick to play private investigator Ned Cruz, a fast talking wiseass who gets in way over his head when a giant Russian ex boxer (Robert Maillet, priceless) hires him to find his luscious pen pal Lexie Parsimmon (Sienna Guillory). This leads him into a dangerous web of eccentric characters including pseudo astro physicist billionaire Simon Kestral (Sam Elliott in a hairdo that would make David Bowie blush), a shady porn director (Snoop Dogg), a sexy small town waitress (Autumn Reeser, making everyone sweat in one of the hottest sex scenes I've ever seen put to celluloid), a kinky ex Hollywood star (James Van Der Beek), and more. The film jumps around in time, as any good noir should, as Ned tells his story to three relentless detectives, burnt out Skeres (Delroy Lindo), sharp, sleazy Frizer (Thomas Kretschmann, excellent), and volatile Poley (William Fichtner steals the show as the bratty, hotshot prick of the trio). There's work from Jimmi Simpson, Bill Duke, and Rebecca Mader. It's a bit muddled at times, and the inevitable style over substance claim will undoubtedly be heard, but it's got style, energy and ambition in droves, providing a neon lit verbal and visual maze of head scratching intrigue and priceless dialogue for the cast to play in. Well worth a visit.