Medo X

Security guard, Harry Caine (Tutorro) lives a life of lonely obsession after his wife's mysterious shooting at the shopping mall where he works. Unsolved by local Wisconsin police, Harry struggles to piece together information salvaged from surveillance video footage. A dream leads him to discover a photo that begins his search for truth in Montana. Like many psychological thrillers it meanders through themes of schizophrenia and police corruption, but doesn't rise to the excellence of the superior 'Spoorloos' by fellow Danish director, George Sluizer. I soon realised that I had no compassion for Caine or held any emotional attachment to either him or his dead wife. I am certainly not condemning Tutorros' acting; indeed the entire cast did a fine job. The plot just had no substance, no story, no soul. I watched narrative suffer through incoherent changes between dreams, visions and reality. No meaning could be made from feeble attempts at lynchian uniqueness. Kubrick collaborative Larry Smith is Fear X's saviour. Through his creations of unnerving environments we wallow in a visual richness without which would leave the film ineffectual. This utterly pretentious film fails to tell us a story worth listening too. Uncompelled I watched, hopeful that Fear X would recover with a remissive ending. The biggest let down of all being we had to fabricate it ourselves.

critics and the media are always obsessed with novelty. if it doesn't bring something new to the table, then the hell with it. with this attitude, films like "fear x" fall by the wayside, but i'd like to speak in its favor.

if you're going to copy someone, copy the best. this movie is told using a vocabulary pioneered by other directors, namely david lynch and particularly stanley kubrick. this leads many to dismiss it as unoriginal.

while it may not invent a cinematic language all its own, i think it certainly uses some existing techniques to great effect. the resonant emptiness and dread of the overlook hotel from "the shining" is adeptly echoed here in mall parking lots, empty houses and hotel rooms. lynch's knack for making everyday american trappings foreign and scary is taken for a spin, and even an inexplicable trip/voyage sequence a-la kubrick's "2001" turns up.

fantastic camerawork by kubrick veteran larry smith and amazing sound design by the master of ambient noise, brian eno, make for an unusually polished cinematic experience.

the story line is admittedly a bit weak for all the cinematic devices around it, but with a movie this enjoyable and consistently intriguing, who cares?

lets start by saying that its probably one of the worst films i have ever seen. worst in any perspective. I love this kind of scripts, you know, the one man against an unknown truth, nobody believes him... the kind like arlington road, mothman prophecies , etc...

i watched this till the end, even though after half hour i knew i should leave, just to be sure i am not missing some twist. but nothing happened. and this is the major problem here - NOTHING is happening. the movie is slooooow, so slow. the good editing and the soundtrack does not make up for lack of STORY.

Torturro is an excellent actor by any defenition, and here he is not using even 10 percent of it. its like getting a Porche for one week as a gift and drive it in 10 mph around the neighborhood.

sorry, for this kind of film and actor i expected nothing but a

4-5 star film. i have to give it 1 out of 5.

Psychological thriller about a security guard, Harry, trying to identify who killed his wife and why. The pursuit of justice does of course run closely in parallel with Harry trying to come to terms with the murder of his wife in a shopping mall. His investigations uncover police corruption as well as linking to anti-corruption activities. Harry's obsession with his investigation leave us wondering how much of what he perceives is real and how much is imagined.

The film is also about bereavement, loneliness, fear and obsession, well portrayed by John Turturro as the grieving security guard. An intriguing film that keeps the viewer guessing. However, the story ultimately isn't satisfying and is at times too loose and aimless. Not a brilliant film but a certainly a good film.

This is film has all the elements of a suspense thriller without anything in between to join them. I found it to be quite effective and genuinely intriguing up until halfway, then it became gradually apparent that there really was no cogent story. We are give the pieces of a puzzle only to find that they never fit together anyway.

Lots of people seem to be reading too much into the story, that's probably what Refn wanted. Personally I think he really couldn't put together a good thriller and this is a total cop out. Don't waste your time trying to make sense of something senseless, there is nothing in there to bring this together and reading anything into it is entirely in your own mind.