nauseating & misogynistic

Rating: 1/10 (23 April 2005)

This film was terrible, painful to watch, offensive and oppressive.
It is filled with violence against its women characters, who are all either whores or victims or whores who are victims. Every story line involves a man saving or rescuing a woman or girl from another man. Women are shot, beaten, knocked to the ground, tortured, mounted on walls as trophy-heads, etc. While there are some women in the movie who kick ass, it is not enough to justify the rest of the film. (Besides, they're still women who kick ass as half-naked dominatrix-prostitutes who ultimately need the male narrator -- all the narrators are men by the way -- to take direction and save them anyway.)
In general the whole movie is crazy violent and disturbing, and coming from me (video game addicted, zombie-flick loving) that's a serious statement. People were actually walking out of the movie in a pretty steady stream by a certain point. My friends and I stuck it out to the end, but when we walked out of the theater we all were completely stunned by what we'd just been through. We literally felt violated and victimized and chose to take cabs home.
The performances were great. Visually it was stunning. There's no doubt the film evoked an intense film noir feel. What a shame that this movie's artistic appeal was drowned out by its overwhelming misogyny and perversion.