How to write a bad review for Brokeback Mountain

Rating: 10/10 (20 April 2006)

I watched this movie, but for reasons I can't put my fingers on, it left me somewhat dissatisfied. So I come to IMDb to check the reviews, especially the negative ones, to see they can help me see why I felt that way. But wow, am I surprised. Here's just a few snippets of the latest negative comments -
"For some reason the ranchers of Wyoming have been looked at as stupid inbread hillbillies by the eastren states", "perhaps the most immoral and evil film to come out of Hollywood", "most awful, pointless, boring and disgusting piece of trash", "boring"...
Are we to think that Brokeback haters are all ill-educated oafs who can't write a coherent sentence? Or numskulls with the emotional intelligence of a gnat? Or shrinking violets who get shocked senseless by the sight of Jake making out with Heath?
So here I'll try to write a negative review which I hope I can articulate my dissatisfaction, but also to help out the Brokeback haters hoping that it will inspire them to write reviews which won't make them sound like complete nitwits -
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Brokeback Mountain is a story of two ranch hands who met herding sheep in Wyoming in 1963. Quite unexpectedly, one drunken night, they began a sexual relationship. This lasted until their job finished and they went their separate ways. Both settled into married lives and had kids, but they resumed their relationship four years later which continued until one died many years later.
This film has been described as a "gay cowboy" film but that is completely misleading as the theme of the film is about fear and self-repression, and how this affects love and leads to loss. The director Ang Lee made a conscious decision to make this film rather restrained, almost minimalist in its approach. This is to the detriment of the film as it means that the central relationship between the two men is only roughly sketched. We are not sure as to why there is such a strong attraction between the two, or why their relationship lasted so long. There is nary a shy smile, a furtive glance, or a whispered endearment. Perhaps the director wishes to avoid the trappings of a typical lush romantic story, but it makes the romance between the two not truly convincing.
Another consequence of this is that the viewers don't feel engaged enough with the characters to empathise with their predicament. The leisurely pace at which the director tells his tale further add to the sense of ennui.
The performances of the central characters are far from perfect. Jake Gyllenhaal for example has a tendency to flair his arms around like an overacting school boy at moments of heightened emotion. Some of the supporting cast are below par - both the Twist parents are not well-acted, ditto for Cassie or the Basque who is just a caricature there for comic relief. Some of the scenes, such as the fireworks scene, are unnecessary and distracting and disrupt the flow of the film. The makeup for the actors is poor, at certain scenes it is so embarrassingly obvious that it threatens to turn a tragic scene into a farce.
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One important thing, Brokeback haters must also say that they hated it so much that they stopped watching it twenty minutes before the film finished. That last twenty minutes is the reason why it got a ten, it is the emotional heart of the film and where the genius lies. It hit me sideways, sent me reeling and left me choking with grief. If you have really seen it, but are still left unmoved and gave it a vote of a one or three out of ten, then yes, you are most probably an emotional cripple, an intellectually challenged Crash fan and a complete boor.