Commandements

This film was pretty good, but could have been a lot better. It starts out great with impressive flashbacks, dialogue and scenery, flattens out into an almost boring retelling of the world's oldest and most used theme: good against evil, and then suddenly lifts itself up again in the last minute with a bizarre, biblical ending that I for one have never ever seen on film before. Parts of the film are very well written indeed, the black humor is great and the characters are actually fairly human and believable. But in the long run, the film ends up just confusing and a bit unsatisfactory.

Being a young widowed man, I was most anxious to see Commandments. Also, if you have read any of my other film revues, you should know how much I enjoy seeing Courteney Cox's work. However,despite all my efforts, I could not find enough substance within this motion picture to really enjoy it

The plot: a recently widowed man fusses at God due to his recent string of bad luck, ie death of his wife, tornado coming from no where and destroying, only his home, leaving his neighbors untouched, and so on. He then decides to break all the commandments as a way to challenge God to sort of a duel?

The photography was dark and dreary, even on sunny day scenes, giving the film a "life is so drab" undertone. We watch as the main character one by one breaks all of the commandments, which include a tastefully executed love scene with his brothers wife, played by Courteney Cox. As always, Ms.Cox's work was most admirable.

I can tell you first hand what being widowed is like, the pain and frustration are overwhelming. Commandments does not hit any of those marks. It is rather a self indulgent film that through black humor, tries to have us take a look at our own belief's. I won't even mention the ending.I will leave that for you to discover. Hey,you may enjoy this film more than I, but I doubt it.

There's good work being done here by the principals--I can't decide which of them I like the most, really, although Anthony LaPaglia's noirish everyday scumbag is the best-written of the three. While the story has its weaknesses, it works fine enough for this sort of unassuming film that tells a story in its own meandering way. Courtney Cox finally comes out of her shell, finally playing a likable character, and she proves a worthy receptacle for most of the camera's adoration. All around, a good date rental for those who won't be put off by the sacreligious plotline.

Aidan Quinn ("Legends of the Fall") stars as Seth Warner, who recently has suffered one major setback after another: the tragic disappearance of his wife, the destruction of his house, and the loss of his job. And, for good measure, his dog is crippled by a bolt of lightning. Assuming that God himself has it in for him, Seth determines to get even by breaking all 10 of the Commandments.

Written & directed by Daniel Taplitz ("Breakin' All the Rules"), this dark comedy-drama is savvy enough to ask some pertinent theological questions, and has some good moments, but for this viewer, it didn't come off as well as I would have liked. Part of it is that I would have liked to see it get even darker, and go into more detail as the unhinged Seth broke those Commandments. Instead, it gets sappy & romantic as Seth falls in love with his neglected sister-in-law Rachel Luce (Courteney Cox, the "Scream" series), whom he initially just wanted to use re: the "thou shalt not covet thy neighbors' wife" Commandment.

The film has an effective offbeat quality, but Taplitz just doesn't follow through that interestingly on a grabber of a premise. It's too bad, because he does get solid performances out of his cast, with Anthony LaPaglia ('Without a Trace') rounding out the star trio as Rachels' slimy husband Harry, an investigative journalist. The character is amusingly scummy, and LaPaglia pretty much steals the show.

While such a film may initially bother some who are religious, it ultimately has enough going on that it could provoke some pertinent discussions afterwards.

Six out of 10.

When someone takes such a good idea... a man who decides to break the ten commandments in order to spite god... and creates a movie out of it, I tend to sit up and pay attention. I won't lie, part of me watching this was in order to enjoy watching someone mocking religion(me being a lifelong Atheist), at least at first(when I watched this at age... what, eleven? when it first came out), but I started to see it as a somewhat good satire. However, that's all it is... somewhat good satire. There is some good questions in this film... dealing with faith and religion. However, the film spends too much time on... nothing. Plenty of time passes without anything important happening. And in the end, it's just too cookie-cut and happy to mean anything. It should have kept with the style instead. The whole film is shot very darkly and dreary, every single scene looks at though it's night-time and is seen through the eyes of a natural born pessimist. The plot is fairly good. The pacing is decent. The acting is solid. The characters are fairly well-written, though a few of them are underdeveloped. The whole romantic part of the film(together with the ending) makes it too sweet and pretty. Too positive compared with the rest of the film. As if the writer/director was bound and gagged while someone more positive finished the film and added the romantic subplot. The dark comedy is one of the best points of the film. Very funny. The satire is quite good, as well. All in all, a fairly good film, but not one to make a quest out of getting your hands on. I recommend it to fans of the actors and of dark comedies. People with questions for religion(particularly Christianity) might also want to check it out. 5/10