Did anyone else think this movie was atrocious?

Rating: 1/10 (24 August 2006)

How did this movie get 7 stars? Are people so sheltered and ignorant and politically correct that just because this movie deals with a disturbing topic in an "uplifting" way, it gets accolades? From a technical point of view, the script was disastrous. It starts off early pandering to the ignorant and religious (usually the same, IQ tests have proved), and you think, "oh this is gonna be one of those Scarface type movies where the language and plot elements are easily digestible even if they reflect stimulating, complex ideas", but then you realize, 'no, the writing is just plain awful'. Maggie Gyllenhaal is just ugly, and it is hard to believe that she would be with the much more Hispanic sounding cop. Thanks for trying to cram more PC BS in there, but it's just not socially responsible or realistic...they speak like a particularly white person and a particularly Hispanic person in such a way as to preclude their compatibility. This movie crams in absolutely every predictable cliché...Both with relationships and with the action genre. The Jesus with the water thing was the most ridiculous, tasteless thing I've ever seen. I'm surprised he didn't turn the bottle to reveal a Poland Spring label. This movie is completely structured to be a digestible, box office hit, formulaic turd. If I predicted almost every element, that means plenty of other people did too, and that makes it predictable, predictable is bad. As for those of you who are offended that people would walk out during the memorial credits, guess what, I was one of those people...and I walked out because I was appalled that such a simplistic, technically flawed movie would further try and attach itself to the tragedy. Deference to the victims has nothing to do with the movie. If I urinate on the floor in the shape of a mushroom cloud, am I helping to preserve the memory of nuclear bomb victims? If I want to stop someone from walking away from me (for whatever reason), should I just pull out my laptop and roll the WTC credits? They couldn't walk away then, why that would be so disrespectful to the victims! When they cut back and forth from the families to the trapped cops I kept saying "oh here come the characters that are worthless..." and then I realized that cutting back and forth didn't make ANY of the characters be interesting, have any dimension or development. The patriotism and religion are used ad nauseum, boringly and perhaps even republicanly. I have nothing against Republicans per se, but this movie almost unwillingly made a pastiche of Republican film cliché's. For shame, Oliver Stone. People need to extricate their balls from under the sand and not be afraid to point out BS, even if it deals with heroes, a big tragedy or interracial relations.