Not Good - This Movie Leaves You Pondering Why You Paid $10

Rating: 1/10 (17 February 2008)

I completely agree w/ this comment. I couldn't say it any better myself. The movie is over-hyped, boring, non-cohesive, plot less, and way way way too long.
"Are you kidding me? This is a classic masterpiece? My word, I don't know where to begin...I am still in a daze as to what exactly I watched last night.
It was so ridiculously boring, I amazed myself that I actually stuck with it and sat through the whole 2 hr 40 mins. Frankly, I don't think that I have ever been as remotely near as bored watching a movie to the extent I was with this. The first dialogue-less 30 mins or so were excruciating enough - I kept convincing myself throughout that things were going to get better and that the good IMDb reviewer folk who had so ranted about how good this movie was were not totally off their rockers. Sadly, it never did. The "story" (I use that word loosely) was a mish-mash of events that do not provoke any feeling or care about what the film is trying to portray (which I am still trying to figure out).
The score is an absolute butchery on the ears - way too loud, incessant violin screeching with random percussion pieces thrown in now and then for absolutely no purpose at all. All it succeeded in doing was add to the "why are we here?" atmosphere the whole theatre had. Daniel Day Lewis we all know is a very talented actor, but his over acting in some scenes and the absolute non-connection felt for his character didn't add up to anything in the end. His son, HW, had no character development whatsoever, he just sat in the scenes for the vast majority of the movie. I was desperately willing something to happen with his character (by that time I had long been scratching at straws to keep watching). We go from seeing him as a child for 90% of the movie to then suddenly being grown up, and then straight into probably the most poignant part of his and his "father's" relationship - him being disowned by DDL (which I am guessing was intended to illustrate how low and out of touch DDL's character had become). But who really cared? In fact, there was minimal character development for DDL and practically nothing for anyone else - the long, drawn out scenes with no direction or clue as to where we were going severely impacted the ability to really care for what was going on. And what did the film's title have to do with anything? It obviously wasn't literal - at least there wasn't really enough violence or blood to count. Nor was it really figurative - honestly, totally meaningless with regards to what the film was portraying."