So many actors, so few bullets

Rating: 4/10 (21 February 2015)

Best thing: the drummer. Relentless, pent up rage beats beneath this melodrama.
Next best thing: how the critic is portrayed.
Set on Broadway, with actors playing actors in a play about the search for authenticity, the atmosphere of theatre comes through in the direction, sound and lighting. Some great acting, but the lines get a bit hammy. How much is too much? I don't know, but somewhere in the second third of the movie, i began not to care.
I think the problem mostly was that i couldn't relate to the hammer and tongs approach to the theme of self reflection, self actualisation, self identity, etc ...in the modern age, who am I really, if I'm not on facebook do I really exist, and if I have followers have i made it, if I have celebrity, can I be authentic? Probably seems a lot more serious to people who use these media, and who are at the mercy of the idea that popularity brings relevance. Maybe more serious to people in show business..
I don't know, where did it fail... When the main character said he was putting his life on the line for the play, wait... Did he mean the house in Malibu was being mortgaged? His career was on the line? His reputation, reputation he might lose his reputation? Was this movie glorifying that chap Cassio? Jeez, guys, sorry, he wasn't much of a character, you know?
Worst thing: the amount of time it took to get to the end, thinking that the actors had wasted such good talent on poor screenplay.
I am glad that many others have rated this movie more highly. And that in reality my opinion, happily, does not matter a jot in the scheme of things.