After the Fall

This movie depicts people's real life choices after struggling and having financial trouble. People around the world struggle to provide for themselves or their families, they are also unable to get a job, so they turn to a life of crime. Some criminals hate what they do, but they do it in order to survive. Some criminals do it because they love committing crimes and they are just antisocial and they get thrills out of doing what they do. I have turned to a life of crime under the same circumstances as depicted in this movie, so I understand what it feels like to not be able to get by and fail to get a job. So this is a decent movie and I have seen lots of other movies similar to this one. I enjoyed the movie, some hate it, some like it. It's just that kind of movie.

(2014) After The Fall DRAMA/ CRIME DRAMA

Co-written and directed by Saar Klein starring Wes Bentley as insurance investigator, Bill Scanlon who has just begin to put some money into a new house with a swimming pool and so forth, learns he is being laid off putting him in a tight spot. To proud to tell his wife about it, he thinks the the only solution is to us the family revolver to shoot himself. Only for him to accidentally rob a couple and enjoying it. What happened next is ludicrous is when a detective, Frank McTiernan (Jason Iasaac) is involve. Based on a time when George Bush JR was President foreclosing many homes.

I doubt 'After the Fall' was conceived as a sequel to 'Falling Down' but the movies do have a similar subject. Wes Bentley plays the protagonist, who begins to have money issues after losing his job. His character is completely unsympathetic, a sociopath who lies easily to his family and goes on an increasingly reckless crime spree because he's too prideful to ask for money from his father-in-law. Instead, he robs complete strangers at gunpoint with an astonishing lack of anxiety or hesitation; he moves like a career criminal with no fear of getting caught. His occasional indulgence in rants and his spontaneous petty interventions suggest a desire for social justice, but his actions are transparently hypocritical and the film has established that nothing he says can be believed. It's hard to see any arc of development at all in this character because Bentley doesn't emote. He never varies his facial expressions beyond a look of frustrated detachment - his eyes never change, his face doesn't move; he walks quietly through dry scenes set to meditative music posing with the same look in every shot, and he never experiences remorse. His wife (Vinessa Shaw) is a trophy, a prop to suggest his motivation, but she's so completely oblivious and implausibly stupid, she doesn't interact enough to actually humanize him. There are plenty of scenes of his children happily playing or asking questions. The implication is that Bentley never swallows his pride because he cares for his family - that alone should justify lying to them and sadistically hurting whoever he wants. This movie will be of special interest to you if you think your wife is useless and your children are such a burden, it could justify murder and suicide.

It's a very difficult movie to sell. Our main character is not really that likable, with some traits that a Hollywood Blockbuster would attribute to its bad guy. But this is not a Hollywood movie, so if you're looking for senseless entertainment, you'd be better off looking somewhere else for that.

No this is a character study, which is well played by Wes Bentley. Even though he seems to be pigeonholed into this sort of a role, you still cannot deny his charisma and his power to portray men in despair. His looks/face alone is worth a lot. But him alone is not enough, you need someone like Jason Isaacs to balance all that stuff. Another man with issues of his own, these two men seem to find each other, even without looking. The "friendship" that ensues is not one that seems to have long lasting power though ... but you'll have to watch the movie, to see how that drama and web of lies unfolds ...

West Bentley plays the lead "Bill Scanlon" an insurance adjuster father and husband who got laid off after he bought a way too expensive suburban house in Albuquerque NM. But he is too proud to even tell his wife. So one day after he walks out into the neighboring desert to waste himself with an old revolver he finds he can't do it. So he wonders into a model house of a new subdivision where he finds a couple having sex, some sort of affair. So he ends up "accidentally" robbing them, then realizes sticking people up is lucrative and even fun.

So he embarks on a life of crime while still pretending to be working and even meets a down at his heels seedy detective played by the great Jason Isaac. He befriends them then takes them out in the desert where he gives the younger Bill a shooting lesson, after finding out Bill's dad was a cop. All sorts of things happen like his wife finds out he is out of a job and decamps with the kids to her dad's house. Our hero then decides to fill the pool in because "pools are such a hassle" even as he tries to unload the too big defaulting house. Then his wife comes back, why?

He also tries to play the good guy by threatening various hold up victims like a manager of a convenience store who was nasty to a cute employee he liked. The movie premiered at some German film festival where the audience ate it up as a perfect example of the rotten American dream and the rotten nuclear family.

I didn't buy it, especially with its dreamy camera work, slow pacing and emo score. It was just schlock pretending to be profound.