Thoroughly lousy film-making; Braff needs to be less impressed with himself

Rating: 1/10 (24 July 2005)

Apart from the cloying pretension of the entire script, the hamfisted metaphors, the often frighteningly amateurish acting, and the fact that Zach Braff apparently thinks gazing emptily into the camera communicates some soul-stirring information on the nature of the character he plays, this film is very poorly done even on the most basic levels of film-making. Witness the repeatedly blown eyelines (for example, where the hell is he looking when the cop pulls him over on the motorcycle?), horrid and cliché shot selection, and abysmal characterisations... Some people have been giving this film a pass, saying "not bad for a firt effort," or even claiming "Braff really knows what he's doing behind the camera." Well, as someone who's gone through a graduate film program, I can tell you, this IS bad for a first-time effort; Braff does not seem to know much about what he's doing behind the camera; and many of the blunders in this film would not be acceptable in a student film, much less a feature.
2 things really bugged me. One, how the hell did he get Ian Holm to show up? Does he have pictures of him naked with a sheep or something? Two, and this is them kind of precious garbage that enrages me in films like this, good thing there's a vintage WWII era motorcycle lying around in the garage, complete with sidecar, because, y'know, it looks really neato. While saying nothing at all about character or story.
I don't know Mr. Braff, but he seems to havepoured rather too much of himself into this flick, and convinced himself that virtually every cliché of 20-something ennui constitutes blinding, revelatory insight. I am at an utter loss to explain this film's 8 out of 10 IMDb rating, except to posit that those raving over how deep this film is are the same sort of self-involved, self-pitying spoiled rich white kids from Jersey, or similar environs, who seem to share Mr. Braff's conceit that their commonplace and often trivial hardships constitute the stuff of tragic melodrama. I'll see your Zach Braff and raise you half a dozen Kevin Smiths.