bricslove

This is a flick that delivers the basic requirements of its genre. Assuming due to its small but talented cast that it was shot with a low budget, I think it's done with mastery and taste. The lead actress Shin Hye Sun is a very talented one and I've been a fan for years. (You've seen Mr. Queen? That's the one. Versatile and never over the top.) The scenes are mostly well-shot, including the immediately engrossing intro which, I think, could have been a little longer. The tempo is nice and without rushing it or drawing it out, the premise is introduced in the natural course of the plot.

In other words: done with a small budget but doesn't feel cheap, well shot, tempo optimal for its kind, good acting.

I don't want to mislead, though: it is a forgettable movie mostly relying on plot tropes and though certain risks the criminal takes to go about doing his stuff might slightly challenge suspense of disbelief, that feeling will go away as soon as you pay attention to what is implied in the movie about the inefficiency and priorities of police force regardless of what desk takes on what task as long as it is a nobody -read your average citizen- that is to be protected.

That's secondary to the point that the movie makes, though. What's it that they drive home loud and clear? That the internet has basically become the Wild Wrst for us nobodies. *

It's a nice movie to pass the time. It's not one to make an impact. (More character development would be needed for that as well as veering a bit more into the drama side.) *: Well, most of us know what dangers await internet users in this era where we can do almost anything on the internet and yet can never be too sure of our safety, which we just entrust to a variety of things: security software, reputable institutions, police force etc... Even then, skills and/or knowledge we don't have overpower us. We entrust our safety really more with the idea, a fact most of the time, that we are not important enough to be a target online.

That's the exact victim profile certain types of criminals need, however, like when governments rob us relying on our numbers, for instance, or when companies know we are too small to fight back as individuals such that we have to suck it up most of the time if we find that we're wronged..

The crimes that nobodies commit against nobodies, too, operate on the same principle:you are a target when it becomes obvious that no one has your back. It's what a predator watches out for in their prospective prey.

So why do we make stupid mistakes when we know we can never be too careful? Well... When you find yourself having to constantly budget your finances, you kind of have to forget you're making a bet on your own wellbeing, to a certain extent... Any decision made by the protagonist that might look stupid hinges on that fact about her. It is up to you to accept that. I find it very realistic in that sense.

--- Pretty classy for a supposedly "low-budget" movie released in 2004. No senseless action that distracts from the story. Nice cam work. Nice tempo. Nice script overall.

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To those who viewed this as a much realistic presentation of the nature of the types of things that really transpire behind the curtains when it comes to power, money, crime and politics:

Well, folks, you should have known, then, that... there actually is no Spartan. A guy who writes a script where one of his characters says something along the lines of "These people are savages who don't even know how many children they have," should have known that the much simpler reality has never allowed for any Spartans. Maybe he did know at the time of his writing. Maybe that's why we don't exactly get to see how the protagonist could have fooled the US before fooling the UAE(or whatever) customs or other details like that. This is not really that central to the story but the thing is if you are being such an Arthur Miller where the whole country is all your children and if truth is what you need in order to repent without a full deconstruction, then how he couldn't have faked his way into that country, in reality, without the intelligences looking the other way actually touches the heart of the issue.

The heart of the issue is this is a fairy tale where realism is used to a certain degree to tell the tale. 1) The ugliness of reality was made use of to tell you that you need a Spartan inside who will fight alone, and who will fight your fights for you. 2) Reality, then, is watered down to be able to tell you to believe in Spartans and aspire to them.

Kilmer's character Scott was never an idiot. He said as much himself. He said to his mentee Curtis that he was neither a thinker nor a planner, but an executioner and he wanted to remain that way. What people seem to refuse to acknowledge is that this was, actually, an informed decision.

The second point missed by many here is that it's exactly this 'Spartanness' to him that taught him to compartmentalize first to then get the job done. You must supposedly have your heart in the right place beforehand but moving towards your goal without any reservations (such as your life being on the line or not) is what's Spartan about this. A legionary or a self-sacrificing "hero" might both be unflinchingly resolved when push comes to shove and the fine thick line that separates them is the motive, or, where their heart is. People seem to think the title of the movie is about the latter (the motive). I think it's about the former (having no reservations and compartmentalization). If it's not, I'd consider this a stupid movie as the writer had much more time to figure things out than the viewership and without having the former, you cannot do jack with the latter. And people that have the means for both who kineticize that potential? Their number is so small in comparison that they can be considered negligible. Besides, there is a third ingredient for such a "hero" to succeed: making it a problem of the masses and that in turn requires both intellect and some positive chance factor.

How do you say? When you go into the details of the level of realism involved here (the nit and grit?), no cinematic work that ends on a high note could hope to convey it. The President squatting on Scott's success where that success also had cost many lives, did imply a bleak future that allows no lessons to be learned, and hence the grunts and muttering as they're watching him give some public speech. That was very realistic, true. That Scott could watch it like that without being hunted down? No.

We could chalk all that up to the fact that directors have limited time to convey a story and they cannot possibly elaborate on everything or indulge every aspect to something, yes. However, there's also the fact that all directors know that watching movies is escapism and there's only so much a viewer can take unless they are living high up in a plaza or something. This movie tells the truth about the systemicness of all of it, at least.

Remember what the Sgt woman said: "It always comes down to this." Something along those lines.

That is the key to this whole movie and to the way Mamet uses his fairy characters to actually make a true statement because nobody said there couldn't be more fairies. But then you need guys like Curtis, fresh insiders that aren't corrupt yet, to make you want to decide against yourself and put your "thinking cap back on," not for your pocket or ego but for your heart which wants to come "home".

The atmosphere was great.

I'm not sure if Saga's portrait as a neurodivergent person realistically falls anywhere on any spectrum. At least, it wasn't as bad as some other portrayals out there.

To be honest.. The script is just ridiculous. What the antagonist does, his motives, the period of time over which the plan was hatched, how exactly he invested himself in all this and with what resources etc.. So many questions are left hanging and those that were touched upon have lame answers when you pause and think about it.

It almost feels like they decided to do something involving gangs and other interest groups at first, akin Forbrydelsen, and then found a way to ditch the original idea with style while repurposing the existing footage by shooting more scenes and squeezing them in over a couple of episodes at the beginning.

For me where Broadchurch and True Detective's first season are 10/10 and Forbrydelsen is a 9/10 (I'd probably make that 10 today), Broen cannot be more than 6 or 7 with such a lack of depth in characters, their backgrounds and motives. People might find depth in it but for such shows your antagonist is as important as your protagonist, maybe more so in certain cases. With what the character in this show does while outsmarting the two countries' police forces, the motivation feels just silly. Yes, as one of the protagonists say, the character is sick, and elaborating on that should have been the priority rather than honing the art of keeping people hanging. Trying to keep it a thriller with such tricks took away from the depth of the characters, hence the cogency of the plot that seems too demanding in terms of suspension-of-disbelief. Such a demand doesn't meld well with an otherwise realistic world and story, anyway.

It was ludicrous how a terrorist wasn't being handled by national security but by city cops. Yes, there's cooperation between two countries here, and you can see their version of SWAT teams getting involved, but with the sort of terrorist actions shown in this thriller series, even the intelligence would have normally stepped in whether that intelligence specializes in domestic affairs or not.

Due to its reputation and more than that, my impression of how good Scandinavian crime thrillers can be, I'd had high hopes for this show but it turned out to be silly as hell. It is quite watchable, though. Either the actors could have been better or the script did them no good. The actor playing Martin Rhode totally flunked in my eyes at the end. What the hell was that in the hospital bed...? You cannot get something like that out of your system after a crying spell? Why can't I still detect guilt and bereavement on his face? It should have never left his face after the deed was done.

When the script lacks so much in credibility everything else suffers. The quality of being realistic was going to be the strongest suit of this show, made complete by such cool atmosphere and cinematography, as well as the actors' skills, but when the script is an embodiment of "yeah, no", you cannot do that, can you?

I can see what this show set out to be. It made me feel what it was going for from the start. It didn't land. It ended up nowhere near where it wanted to because the story wasn't developed with this specific concern in mind.