Ever have one of those nights where you just can’t sleep, so you end up watching pretty much whatever miscellaneous garbage you can find on TV in a mixed attempt at mindless entertainment and, with any luck, subsequently boring oneself to sleep? That’s where I found myself about 9 hours ago, and now I’m here to make sure that nobody else out there has to share the same horrible movie experience that I endured…
The “movie” was called Funny Games, although it was anything but … the kind of film where you get up at the end and find yourself thinking, “Wow – there goes two hours of my life that I’m never going to get back.” And even scarier yet, apparently this was actually a re-make of something the very same director did a decade prior, so I can only imagine what the original was like … but just for consistency’s sake, I’m going to go ahead and imagine that it was horrendous, too.
The story itself almost sounds intriguing – a family on vacation at their lakeside cabin is taken hostage by two psychotic young men who then proceed to torture the trio with mind games before eventually killing them all. Unfortunately, this cinematic torture itself is almost two hours long, so the viewers don’t even begin to realize that they’re watching a horrible movie until about halfway in, but don’t worry – once the suck hits, it just keeps coming and coming and coming.
I think what pissed me off about this movie is that it becomes very clear in that second half that this is a film snob’s movie, in that it’s full of all sorts of political agenda and “clever cinematic devices” that apparently make the movie “absolutely brilliant” for anyone who’s currently in film school and fucking retarded to the rest of us. I’ve since read plenty of comment threads online about how everything taking place off-camera was intended to show us how preoccupied Americans are with violence and how the film “said so much by not saying anything at all.” Oh yeah, and lest we not forget those charming scenes when the lead psycho turns and talks to the audience or when he actually rewinds the movie because it didn’t play out like he had intended. Yes, truly awesome film making, indeed…
Needless to say, when the credits finally rolled at nearly 5:30am, I was definitely pissed at myself not only for staying up so late, but also for allowing myself to get sucked into such a sucky suckfest. Perhaps if I were a starving, art school student, I’d instead be writing a rave review this afternoon, urging all of my fellow film geeks to go check out this piece of cinematic brilliance, but I’m not. It didn’t “make me stop and think,” nor was I “caught in awe by its powerful, yet subtle message” (???). Nope, ultimately Funny Games was just a horrible idea for a movie that brings absolutely no value to the viewer whatsoever, be it entertainment or insightfulness or even some intellectually-stimulating bullshit.
Even when sleepless at 4:00am, it’s not worth your time. Just trust me on this one…
