So much footage, so little film

Rating: 1/10 (12 January 2005)

A disaffected American actor making a whisky commercial in Tokyo teams up with a young American guest in his luxury hotel. As the trailer shows this isn't a bad premise for a film but unfortunately the writer/director has NO idea how to structure a narrative or pace a film. There's not one arresting scene, memorable line of dialogue or three-dimensional character in the whole thing. I may be exaggerating but if you took out all the scenes where someone stared moodily out of the window the thing would probably only last 25 minutes. You will take away from this film the amazing knowledge that people in foreign countries a)do things a little differently and b) often don't speak English. Why either a veteran movie star or a Yale philosophy graduate would be fazed by this I don't know but those remaining 25 minutes would pretty much consist of their slack-jawed astonishment at the antics of those crazy Japanese (who--hold the front page--sing karaoke and can't tell their "Rs" from their "Ls"). The most overrated film since "American Beauty". My wife had to laugh when she saw there was "bonus material" on the DVD. "Bonus to what? There's no movie on there!"