Overrated

Rating: 4/10 (29 November 2008)

How this piece of art-house schlock ever came to be seriously respected is totally beyond me. Darren Aronofsky's big claim to fame (along with Requiem for a Dream), features Sean Gullette as an obsessed math genius determined to find a pattern in the inner-workings of the stock market, I guess so that he can get really rich. It's implausible that an individual as devoted to "ideas" as he claims to be would be so motivated to apply his talent to such a parasitic end, but hey, I guess audiences don't think brilliance is cool anymore unless you use it to hit the big time, which explains the obsession with the Las Vegas card counting geniuses from MIT. Aronofsky's style isn't quite as obnoxious as it would later be in Requiem for a Dream, but it's certainly obnoxious all the same, preferring to film his subject with grainy BW photography and lots of film-schoolish trick shots and fast cutting. Aronofsky ultimately fails to heighten the tension to the extent that he so clearly wishes, he strives for profundity, but Pi remains a simple (albeit moderately clever) thriller, nothing more. The scenes with Gullette and his mentor are well done and kept me interested despite the repetition.