Sorry, usual flashback flick with character that doesn't exist.

Rating: 4/10 (29 October 2006)

Basically the director had some very cool ideas for scenes he'd like to put in a movie. So he borrowed the ole' "He's crazy and sees things that aren't real" jack-of-all-trades.
This isn't even a "movie" as far as I'm concerned. It makes very little sense, since the director always crosses the lines between what's real and what isn't. So for example the prostitute says that "hit and run drivers should be hanged" (and of course there's the whole thing with the post it and the hangman). Now this would be fine if this was part of the dream sequence, but this is supposed to be actually happening, so she would have no way of knowing. The movie is littered with other coincidences that could never happen in real life, and problems are conveniently glossed over without explanation.
For example okay he trips the lathe's switch, which results in his workmate losing his arm. Fine, he hasn't slept in a year, so whatever, he stumbled, he saw the guy, he was distracted. But why didn't any of the safety brakes work? There's a reason they're there, and people who actually work with machines would have been way more surprised than the director evidently was.
The movie sports the usual neon-lighted, greenish cast, two-thirds-stop underexposed photography, which is kept up for the whole movie pretty much uninterruptedly. The main actor was very good, but the whole thing with the thinning was a bit of an eye gimmick.
In the end this movie only "makes sense": 1) you have a bit of a masochist streak and you like to be anguished (that's okay, some people like to be scared by horrors, some people like to watch this stuff) 2) You just take it as a riddle and don't try to make sense of it as a story For example: the connoisseur of the genre might think "Okay: so he was fishing in the photo, and there's a "I'd rather be fishing" bumper sticker on the car where he walks himself into the accident, so there's probably something about fish which is important. But the problem is that the presence of the bumper sticker only makes sense if you let go all suspension of disbelief or consideration for the movie being "real", and think "the director is trying to give me a hint, what is it"?
But this isn't a movie, it's simply a riddle. It's on the same level of "A guy walks into the elevator of his apartment and always presses the button for the 12th floor. He then walks up the last 8 floors to his house. The elevator is in good working order and is perfectly capable of reaching the 20th floor. Why does he behave as he does?" And the answer is that he's a midget and can't reach above the 12th button. The point is that the guy who told me this story only took two minutes of my time. He didn't force me to look at one hour and thirty seven minutes of a crappily lit waith, of arms turning on lathes, and rotten fish heads on the kitchen floor. Some movies include riddles, but few good ones are BASED on one. Fight Club contains some similar themes, but the characters' actions INSPIRE US, instead of knocking us down. Honeslty, it hurt to watch this movie.
In the end what was his point? People who do bad things can't sleep well? Gee, thanks Einstein. I can see how that required pounding on my testicles for two hours to explain.
Watch it if you like this sort of thing.
I don't want to say this movie is PARTICULARLY bad... it's a competently filmed, and very well acted specimen of a genre I HATE!