Plenty of substances, just very little substance

Rating: 6/10 (10 February 2005)

Now, let's start by making it clear that this is an extremely stylish movie. There is no denying that the camera work, visual effects and creation of atmosphere are extremely effective. The drug taking scenes are very powerful when they are viewed the first time, and the second time, maybe even the third, but by the fourth, fifth...tenth..twentieth time the same rapid sequences of drug-taking and their immediate effects wear very thin. Had the film been any longer I think I would have thrown a bag of flour at the screen.
The plot is very, very predictable and the visuals are tacked on in categorizable chunks. After a while you will be waiting for the next step down on the ladder of visual hallucinations. These, like the other effects, are very stylishly done and are quite disturbing at times, but there is really nothing new here.
For some reason this film reminded me a lot of 'Jacob's Ladder', though I think the latter is better and has a much higher re-watchability. In places the camera work was very similar to 'Killing Zoe', again, a slightly better film in my opinion. 'Requiem for a Dream' just doesn't have any substance beyond it's own simplistic message and clever effects; there is just too much repetition here.
Is the acting any good? I don't think so. There was really nothing challenging to be acting about unless you count stereotypes as challenging acting. Each character gets high, gets into a stuporous rage and eventually gets hurt - there is no restraint and everything is just blended together so that even a hint of a good performance is lost in the mixture (a problem I find with many American films these days).
However, my final comment will read, "this movie took me somewhere I didn't want to go, and it did it effectively. It just did it about fifty times in less than two hours and then ended".
Note: I loved Pi, and was quite disappointed with this film.