What is there to get excited about?

Rating: 4/10 (23 November 2001)

This film started promising, with some solid rock numbers, amusing and interesting characters, good feel for atmosphere and, last but not least, a truly interesting premise. But somewhere in the middle I lost interest. The breakdown of the band and everything that happened after that struck me as too pretentious with tons of artificial pathos. At the same time the pace of the movie almost slows down to a stand-still and the story goes absolutely nowhere. And what about that Yitzhak character? He/she was a complete bore from his/hers first scene to the last. Maybe the part is meant to be some sort of enigma, but I couldn't have cared less. And the cartoon interludes, which were fun at first, started to give me a headache after a while. What I expected was an adventurous and knock-em-dead' romp with no holds barred. What I got was something castrated, like the `angry inch' of the title. The final ten minutes could have been great, but Mitchell drops the ball by playing it safe and mouthing bad clichés instead of revealing some really interesting insights. I don't know how Mitchell managed to get awarded for best direction at Sundance. Sure, it has it's inventive moments (the trailer park number to name one thing), but often the direction is static. However, nothing bad can be said about the actor John Cameron Mitchell. His performance is pure energy from the moment go and considering that he is on the screen in almost every scene, it's a great achievement. I also enjoyed the performance from Andrea Martin (the manager) and Alberta Watson too brief scenes as Hedwig's no-nonsense mother. Actually, the flashbacks are fun and have a depth to them that the film as a whole is lacking. So, despite some very good thing, I think this movie was a disappointment. Pity, because with some more guts it could have been great!