Pretends to be smart

Rating: 2/10 (17 July 1999)

Many people will rebut criticisms of this film by stating that it's a Kubrick movie and not meant to have the elements present in traditional Hollywood films with mass appeal. The truth is, this film spends well over an hour building up to its premise, and when it finally gets there, the characters spout off cliche lines such as "you know not what danger you are in here". And as I was watching the film ridiculously and boringly meander through its premise, I couldn't help but think, "We are never going to find out what danger he is in, are we?" I thought this because the film sets up a mystery with the potential to have a complex solution, yet it was evident from the laziness present in the writing up until that point, that it would be too much work for the screenplay's authors (one of whom was Kubrick) to formulate an intelligent solution to its own mystery. This lack of explanation sometimes works in movies, i.e. not knowing what's in the suitcase in Pulp Fiction allows for fun speculation. However, there is no such desire to speculate here, because as the film continues to sloppily drag on, the only thing you'll speculate on is when you'll finally get to leave the theater.