Good movie ruined by headache-causing cinematography

Rating: 4/10 (24 July 2004)

If you like paper-thin depth of field, because the director wants to grab you by the chin and force you to look ONLY at one little detail, because everything else is out of focus, this movie is for you. If you like drunken cameramen operating on an out-of-control merry-go-round, with the camera jerking around all over the place, this movie is for you. If you like juddering frames, and tightly-focused bouncing, as though every actual cameraman was replaced by a victim of Parkinson's disease, badly in need of emptying his bladder, this movie is for you. If you like high-speed, stroboscopic flashing of various blurry images, this movie is for you.
I found myself imagining how much I would enjoy strapping the director into a bumper car, taping someone else's prescription glasses on his head - after shattering one lens with a hammer - and watching him bouncing around in blurred confusion.
I only saw about half of this movie. The rest of the time, I simply closed my eyes. If I had been alone, I would have left after 10 minutes. I HATE the kind of camera-work used in this movie. A pretty good movie was destroyed by intentionally abusing the eyes of the moviegoers.
I would have enjoyed this movie, if it hadn't given me a headache. The acting was good, and Matt Damon's intensity was on target and contagious. I particularly like that he got a limp from jumping on to a barge, and that he was apparently exhausted and hurting near the end. But I definitely won't be seeing this movie again, and I'll be very carefully examining future movies for this malicious camera-work.