The cinematic equivalent of a Big Mac

Rating: 1/10 (19 October 2010)

Is it possible to sue film companies for a deteriorating IQ in the same way McDonald's is tried to be sued for being a public health hazard?
With Eastwood at the helm, I guess I could have known what to expect but I was never so infuriated watching a movie which' obvious intent was not to create something entertaining or authentic, but to secure as many golden statues as possible at the expense of anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together.
Where to start? Jolie was miscast, but maybe they wanted to make an action flick when the project started, had her sign up, and by mistake started working of a script for a totally different movie. It might explain the title. Or what about the irritating self awareness of John Malkovich who'd you, at any point in the movie, expect to break the rule of the 'fourth wall', look smugly into a camera and tell the audience that he's really pleased with his performance so far.
Story wise: horrible, unbelievable plot turns, starting right of the bat when a seemingly intelligent woman is given the wrong boy back, her supposed son, who disappeared a few months earlier. The boy is not her son, she takes him home anyway...
¤¤ Really? ¤¤
The story continuous with Jolie trying to explain to the world that the boy is an impostor who doesn't even match her son's height to which a dentist and a school teacher are willing to testify. Why family members, neighbors, school chums, the family physician, the baby sitter and E.T. the Extraterrestrial weren't asked to help resolve the obvious misconception on the part of the police, was conveniently left out of the tale completely. No, in stead of taking the boy into custody and resuming the search for the real son, the police keep pushing her into believing it actually is her son after which the woman finds herself in a poorly copied tale by Kafka.
From this point on the movie reveals itself for what it was intended to be. An endless string of manipulative scenes drenched in an Oscar vinaigrette in both the melodramatic writing and the obnoxiously polished cinematography with a fetish-like attention to props. Some movies get Oscar nods, but this one actually nods back.
I can only imagine why the livestock would hail these kinds of movies by Eastwood (Milion dollar Baby, Gran Torino) in stead of taking a blazing torch out and scream for something more authentic or at least something less hideously contrived to grace the silver screen for a change. Not to mention featuring characters that are a little more complex than those used in a Donald Duck story.
I mean, it 's not like you are going to complain to the manager at the McDonald's either that everything tastes the same, is soaked in grease and that a Euro 3.20 for a sliced and fried potato with vomit sauce is perhaps a little excessive. Especially considering you have to sit in a wretched and all plastic environment where you have to get the chow yourself.
But, I was discussing a movie, or was I?
0/10