David Fincher has done it again (badly)

Rating: 4/10 (10 January 2003)

I can't say if the ending of this film is good or bad, because I've got fed up with it well before the end.
David Fincher seems to have a taste for grotesque excess. This can be seen in the Madonna videos he directed; it was plain for all to see in "Se7en" (a horrible film) and it is evident again in this film as well.
This film is disturbing to watch, but, unlike "Se7en", at least it's not revolting. It will be liked by all those who think that, in order to criticise the distorted way in which we live, it's essential that an amount of violence as high as possible be shown and represented graphically, even though it doesn't really add to the story. It's not just the violence: it's the whole film that is unpleasant to watch, for no plausible reason.
This is not being original, or visionary, or artistic, or intelligent, thought-provoking, innovative. If you met someone on the street and he punched in the stomach for no apparent reason, how many of you would you say that his action is "thought-provoking"? Not many, I suppose. This film is the cinematic equivalent of a punch in the stomach by a stranger, but it's a little less subtle.
Moreover, this film is also boring, very boring.
I'm rather tired of directors that seem to indulge in shocking the public with unrealistic plots and hyperrealistic violence. Clearly, some of those directors have realised that they can play that game and get away with it (plus a lot of critical acclaim and, probably, a good deal of money). Personally, I think that this film is basically nonsensical. I suspect that, as with "Se7en", it succeeds in making some people feel trendy because they can stand industrial amounts of imaginative violence. Transgression is the word.
Sometimes it's even ludicrous. In the sequence in which Brad Pitt gets beaten by the landlord, after the second punch his face bleeds, but after the third one the blood has disappeared. Miraculous, indeed.