Wild Canaries

After watching this I wanted to murder every character and then burry myself for watching this. AAAAA this is not a comedy this is nothing. I was waiting whole movie for something to happen, to laugh, instead I wanted to strangle Barri. And in the end you have whole explanation. WTF???? No I don't give two stars as I wanted. My god...

If memory serves correctly, "Manhattan Murder Mystery" was only so-so Woody, kind of a throwaway, and this reboot/homage/ripoff is a lot more entertaining. The opening scenes are nothing special, but the murder plot starts heating up pretty quickly; the rest of the film's an interesting blend of comedy and suspense. The killer's MO is totally preposterous—maybe a comment on hipsters who always have some weird art project going on—but most of it's played pretty straight until the farcical climax, not counting a couple of ingenious sightgags; the script gets a lot of mileage out of one character's inability to figure out his new iPhone.

I'm pretty sure no other director would have picked (writer-director) Lawrence Michael Levine to play the male lead, but Sophia Takal has plenty of goofy charm as his suspicious fiancée. Indie stalwart Kevin Corrigan ("Results") makes a fine prime suspect; the attractive supporting cast includes Anne Parisse, Alia Shawkat and Jason Ritter as young creatives who get involved in various ways. At least one critic (Richard Brody of The New Yorker) picked "Wild Canaries" for his year-end-best-of list, though the critics on this site appear to be a much tougher crowd… Decidedly above-average streaming Netflix fare.

Different tastes for different folks; I was looking forward to this movie since I love '30s Screwball Comedies, but instead of a throwback it is just another low-budget almost home movie trading under the Indie banner.

Director and Producer double as the romantic leads and both turn in terrible performances. Levine is annoying throughout, failing at slapstick and virtually impossible to identify with (his character). As his girlfriend, Sophia Takal's character is supposed to annoy Levine' s character with her shrill outbursts, but instead annoys the viewer (this viewer, intensely) almost non- stop. Apparently both she and Levine studied the classic Screwball technique of rapid-fire dialog delivery, but in her case it is counter-productive.

An okay supporting cast walks through what seems like a xerox of a xerox of an old plot - sort of lampooning one of Woody Allen's salutes to old-fashioned movies (take your pick, MANHATTAN MURDER MYSTERY, anyone?). Takal becoming obsessed with the suspicious behavior of her neighbors starts out cornball and soon turns contrived as the so-called suspense develops.

For the finale, Levine has endless boring verbal recaps and explanations that try to tie up the innumerable loose ends of the story - I assumed this was parodying the old know-it-all summations that William Powell was famous for (and Don Adams used to imitate comedically), but they're dull.

Worst ploy was use of masks sort of like the old MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE TV series for impersonation, a gimmick that was overemphasized and ludicrously amateurish. Duelling lesbian subplots get a brownie point for trendiness but were so telegraphed that one wonders why producer Takal didn't insist that writer-director Levine rewrite them until they played convincingly.

Sitting in a movie theater watching this sort of junk is demoralizing, especially since I was around at the birth of the current Indie movement (back when the IFP market at the Plaza Hotel even predated the creation of Sundance) and witnessed first-hand the discovery of new talent like Spike Lee and the Coen Brothers. Now "indie" is just an umbrella for marketing purposes, like "alternative" (a perfectly good dictionary word if used properly) became a rack-jobber category in the music industry.

WILD CANARIES (its title emphasized visually to begin and end the film, but meaningless nonetheless) is just one more mediocre effort - a script that would certainly have been rejected by any major studio, hence independent by default.

I understand why this movie has a such good rating, the movie was good, not one of the best that I have seen, but good, I liked the chemistry between our 2 main leading couple. I like their conversations they had and their way in leading the entire movie. The plot is somewhat decent and pretty predictable. I like the dialogue and the moments that the actors and the director deliver. At the end of the day Wild Canaries, is a decent comedy that kept me entertain, hyped, and made me laugh and end up having a good time until the end, with the nice well chemistry that I mention between our leading couple. I give " Wild Canaries" a 7 out of 10 Stars.

Bravo to Lawrence Michael Levine for writing an engaging story which epitomizes ENTERTAINMENT. This film struck just the right balance of a thriller murder mystery with a lighthearted rom com. Not too scary and not overly heavy. The perfect amount of exciting intrigue, and depth of interpersonal relationships. Fun, fun, fun! I gasped! I laughed! All of the characters were interesting and appropriately well developed. Brilliantly cast! Levine and real life wife, Sophia Takal, are adorably relatable as the on-screen engaged couple, Noah and Barri. Jason Ritter fans, like myself, are in for a real treat. Jason has a substantial role as Damien, the Landlord, and reveals a dimension that is more Bad Boy and rough & tough, than the characters he typically plays. As a New Yorker, I also enjoyed the cool and hip Brooklyn setting. Gorgeous, charming apartments! Wild Canaries is a don't miss, must see romp!