What Bothered Me

Rating: 9/10 (22 January 2006)

I really liked this movie, warts and all. I really did. Yes, it is a series of short scenes in which the characters are more charcoal sketch than oil portrait. Yes, it is too neat that most of the characters act poorly once, then not once. The NYTimes critic (who thoroughly panned the movie) said something about "showing us everyone is complex by showing us lots of characters with exactly two sides." I get it.
The first thing that bothered me happened right away - the opening "LA is a lonely place" crap. I think LA cares about itself a lot more than I do. It would have worked a little better as a closing monologue, but I would have gotten the point all by myself anyway, and aren't the truths the writers wanted us to see universal?
SPOILER - The second thing that bothered me - really REALLY bothered me, was that after one character loses control, grabs a pistol, tracks down his perceived antagonist and shoots at him, no one in the assaulted family calls the police. Sorry, Mr. Editor, the scene where the cops arrest the assailant needed to be in the film.
I LOVED the patter between the two young black men as they emerged from the restaurant. The bit about the bad service and the tip, the bit about who on the sidewalk was, or ought to be, afraid of whom, and then the wonderful "punch line" when the car jacking occurs. Loved it.
I liked that neither Brendan Frazer nor Sandra Bullock were even a little bit cute for even a second. Two selfish creeps!
I liked that the one schlub we thought was a totally innocent victim was revealed, after he was hospitalized, to be part of something transcendentally evil.
Great movie.