NicOldert

We were wanting to watch Fricke's Samsara and bought this by mistake. The most disappointing this about this film is the poor image quality. There are some beautifully composed well-framed shots but the picture quality is poor. This film is about death... and it nearly killed me. Boring, intolerably slow, it gets praised only because it's about poverty-stricken people. It's like everyone feels compelled to say this is profound because it's so 'foreign.' In truth it's a miserable long-winded documentary that labours it's thin philosophical offering. As an attempt to bring reincarnation to life (bad pun intended) it succeeds mainly in inducing coma. From a western perspective it certainly offers some insight into very different cultures but it's just bad story-telling. The flimsiest thread holds the whole thing together.

The first 15 minutes gives one hope that this is going to be a great movie with interesting character development, some insight into the mind of an assassin, the cold-blooded killing machine too often portrayed in movies as a cipher (the relentless killer, a trope, is invariable a person lacking certain all-too-human characteristics). And then, unfortunately, the lead character turns into just another formulaic relentless killer. The fact that he finally finds himself unable to suppress a certain vengeafulness is mildly interesting, but character development essentially stops about a third of the way through. After that you might as well be watching Vin Diesel. It's a pity, because Michael Fassbender and David FIncher could have done so much more with this.