Inside Job

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?

* * ½ (2½ of 5)

Fear X

Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn, 2003



No fear

Nicolas Winding Refn is easily the most interesting Danish director around today. While his tracklisting before Fear X included only two movies - the gritty, streetwise and perfectly captured debut Pusher (1996) and the more ambitious and pseudo-melancholic Bleeder (1999) - he'd already worked up a name for himself as the enfant terrible of, if not European, then Danish cinema.

Refn, like Tarantino (a major influence) and many other angry young directors from the 90s, grew up a movie nerd, raised on action b-movies, Hong Kong slambang and drawing inspiration from cult movies rather than mainstream (accepted) classics.

Yet he also belongs to the elite here (where Tarantino is still CEO) as he has a keen understanding of pure movie making, storytelling and creating angles and unique approaches in what has turned into some sort of predictable genre by itself.

Notice how in Pusher the downright rotten character of Frank (intoxicatingly portrayed by Kim Bodnia) gradually gains our sympathy in his many struggles as the movie progresses. And how in Bleeder Refn still keeps you glued despite the raw and sudden turn in events (Bodnia in another amazing performance) that might have seemed simply uncalled for and repulsive in the script.

Fear X is Refns $7 million dollar American (filmed in Canada actually) debut starring John Turturro and the always welcome James Remar (remember 48 Hours?).

What exactly went wrong here is hard to pinpoint. See, Refn not only had everything going for him, he enlisted Stanley Kubrick's famed photographer (The Shining) Larry Smith and wrote the story together with Hubert Selby (Last Exit To Brooklyn) and he got Turturro to star.

It opens like magic. Refn might be an obsessive perfectionist but the visual ripe beauty and subdued enigmatic thriller qualities of the first hour are breathtaking in both their simplicity and perfectionism. Turturro too seems completely at home here, actually displaying an honest apprehension I have longed to see him take on since Redford's Quiz Show.

The story is interesting. Security guard Harry Caine works at a shopping mall but is stunned by grief when his wife is viciously shot and murdered in the underground parking lot. Caine then spends all his spare time insanely going through CCTV security tapes, hoping to spot the identity of the killer.

Refn's patient opening and sleepy but crispy audiotative visuals makes everything seem in slow-motion. Fear X promises to be a truly effective thriller by now. Notice how cars seem to roll rather than drive and how the scenes within the mall are un-hectic and almost drugged. We feel comfortable in Refn's sure hands but also sense a layered unease about to be revealed later on.

Already here - with cops and security guards in furry Parker coats, minimal and loopy dialogue and brooding snow-covered suburdan scenes that melt into each other - many will draw parallels to Fargo (1996), but that can really only be deemed a testament to how defining the Coens benchmark still is and not as valid critisism of Fear X.

No, what is troublesome is how Refn goes absolutely nowhere in the last part of movie. Caine's journey leads him to a hotel that in itself will have you screaming for another Coen gem also starring Turturro (Turturro, hotel, get it?) That is, if you're not already bogged down by the shameless nods to The Shining with the suspiciously dark red colors of the hotel furnishing, the tricky lighting and the substitute violent red-liquid scene.

There's more. Refn even spices things up with David Lynch mannerisms and comments. Caine is on a kamikaze downfall by now, but the subplot (I won't reveal it) of why and who murdered his wife is so blatantly poor that when the hotel bell clerk comments to Caine: "We provide all sorts of entertainment here" - we don't feel that Refn just popped in a cheerful thumbs-up to Lynch's Twin Peaks, but is desperately trying to thicken his sullen gravy of a plot.

It's a shame. Fear X ends as a pretentious and self-conscious mess that started out like a long-lost classic and perfect thriller.

Director Nicolas Refn is a natural - a master of sound and image - with an astute feel for vibe and engaging storytelling, but Fear X is pretentious way beyond its title alone, dumb when it should be smart and edgy for all the wrong reasons.

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.

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.