Sorry But I fail To See Why It's So Regarded

Rating: 6/10 (29 November 2005)

I was really looking forward to seeing to seeing Alfred Hitchcock's REAR WINDOW because of the massive acclaim it's had from film critics , and when I say " film critics " I mean everyone from the professional journalists who have their own columns in broadsheets to people with real jobs who contribute their own amateur - But by no means amateurish - comments on this website . In fact much my desire to see this movie was down to the it being listed at number 14 on the IMDb top 250 movies list , so I stayed up late last week to watch it on television where it was broadcast at the ungodly hour of 2am and I'm afraid I was bitterly disappointed
Maybe it was the fact that it was well past my bedtime that I could hardly keep my eyes open but it could have been down to the fact that this is one slow moving thriller and the more I think about it the more I start to think that the screenplay was originally written for radio ! The action is very static with Jeff Jeffries lying in bed recovering from an accident looking into a courtyard that is obviously a pastel coloured studio stage . I wasn't expecting explosions and car chases but I was expecting exciting plot twists not a film where the hero spends all day in bed
Is Jeff really a hero anyway ? How would you react to someone who likes to watch pretty young girls sunbathing all day ? And instead of the always likable James Stewart playing the role how would you react if the part had gone to a lecherous bald middle aged man with glasses ? That's right you'd react like one of the villagers from a FRANKENSTIEN movie and lead a torch carrying mob to burn down Jeff's apartment
I won't go into the plot but I will warn anyone who hasn't seen it not to expect very much . It's far from a masterwork of cinema and doesn't contain the director's imaginative visual style as seen in VERTIGO , the unsettling atmosphere as seen in THE BIRDS or the blackly comical twists as seen in PSYCHO