There is no there there

Rating: 2/10 (3 October 2006)

If David Lynch was a complete hack, he might turn out movies like this one. There's a certain degree of visual virtuosity, and lots of transgressive nightmare/dream atmospherics, but nothing truly haunting or authentically surreal; it's painfully trite, predictable, and shallow.
I happened to see this the same week I (finally) saw SLING BLADE. The contrast was instructive. One of the films was truly mythic, and all the more so for its surface simplicity; a profound reflection on the deepest human meaning of murder and sacrifice. The other, for all its dazzle on the surface, was just a gaudy piece of junk pandering to an immature audience that has not yet experienced actual suffering, let alone redemption. I rather envy the naive innocence of those viewers who think a movie like SIN CITY is somehow profound.