This is one of those light movies that is so charming and enjoyable you can't even begrudge its slightly sappy ending. Hiroshi Tamaki stars as Segawa Makoto, a university student who shies away from people because of an unknown illness. He's interested in photography and one day while taking pictures in the woods he runs into Satonaka Shizuru, a quirky waif and classmate, adorably played by Aoi Miyazaki. The normally shy Makoto feels strangely relaxed with the energetic Shizuru, and the two form a friendship. Complications arise from Shizuru being not-so-secretly in love with the oblivious Segawa, who's instead in love with another classmate, the beautiful Miyuki, as well as Shizuru's illness.

Both leads are good, though frankly this is a movie which they don't really have to do much besides act cute. Still I have to praise Aoi Miyazaki, who stole the movie. I'll be honest, I'm one of those grinches who usually can't stand the relentlessly cute and cheerful, squeaky-voiced female protagonists popular in Asian romances. But Aoi Miyazaki completely charmed me with her exuberant performance, which seemed natural despite its childishness. It took me a little while to get used to Hiroshi's Tamaki's performance, I felt he overplayed the awkwardness of his character in the beginning. But he and Miyazaki have a really nice and easygoing chemistry, and they form a realistic couple you want to root for. Supporting characters aren't annoying (if you've watched Asian dramas, you'll know what I mean).

Thinking back, I'm struck by how perfectly balanced the cuteness and unforced emotion was in the movie. Too many romantic dramedies tend to overdo the former, in my opinion, and sacrifice the latter to get a tear, by setting up melodrama. Not to say that this movie doesn't do that. The ending is the cliché melodramatic ending we've see again and again in Asian romances. Yet it works because the movie has engendered so much good will along the way and it shows just enough restraint.

The cinematography is adequate. I feel it didn't quite utilize the full beauty of the title forest(there was perhaps a little too much light in the scenes). That perhaps speaks for the movie as a whole. It's a little too fluffy to be substantial, there have been more original and sensitive versions of its basic plot line. But I recommend it, mostly because of the performance of the female lead.


From the writer of Im ai ni yukimasu ( that happens to be one of my favorite movies... ever), comes this new Japanese romance drama.

It tells the story of a love triangle between 3 university students ( the ambiance reminded me of the drama Orange days quite a bit).

One of them is our main protagonist. A shy, intense and mysterious young man who loves photography ( The actor is Hiroshi Tamaki also known as Chiaki sempai from Nodame's fame ^^) The second character is a shy, rather mysterious girl, who lacks self confidence but is cute and amazingly pure of heart. Did I mention she was really cute ? The actress, Aoi Miyazaki also played one of the leads for Nana 1 ( They changed her for Nana 2 because she was shooting tada kimi wo at the time) The third one is the perfect girl. Beautiful, feminine, smart, confident. She is played by Meisa Kuroki ( who also plays the 'french' girl in "Haikei, Chichiue-sama") Our two main protagonists are, a bit like in Ima, unsure of the feelings of the other one.

The score is great, especially the ending music that I have been listening on my ipod non stop for a few months now :) It's by Ootsuka Ai ( Renai Shashin).

The acting is first rate, especially by Aoi Miyazaki, the movie really revolves around her even is she isn't the main protagonist. Some of the university friends do suffer from over acting but they have a very minor role so it's not really disturbing.

The scenery and photography, as it is usually the case in Japanese movies, is very beautiful and skillfully rendered.

Yet I have to admit, I felt Ima Ai ni yukimasu was better in pretty much all aspects.

Mild spoilers follow ( I don't really say what happens in the end but you might guess it from my comments) There's a surprising twist at the end of the movie. At first, I must admit I felt a bit cheated (it is quite a common trick often used in Asian cinema, especially in Korean movies).

But then, once it had settled in, it's actually quite a beautiful ending. I still can't help but feel slightly frustrated because of what I think is a missed opportunity of character development....

I really hesitated for rating this movie between a 7 and a 8. I guess it's a 7.6. There's something missing and I still think it is because of the ending that happens a bit too fast and is not as intense as it should be.

If you loved Ima, ai ni yukimasu, you will like Tada, kimi wo aishiteru ( 'Just, I love you' or as the international title says Heavenly forest)


Tada, kimi wo aishiteru is definitely one of the most beautiful films ever made. A simple story between two brilliantly presented characters: Makoto (Tamaki Hiroshi) and Shizuru (Miyazaki Aoi) conveys a powerful message of life.

Photography as an art form is really beautiful because it captures the little memories - of things that may seem simple to people but are in fact meaningful to us. Memories like a smile of a loved one, our friends, of good times, and of nature.

Featuring incredibly artistic photography by Miyazaki Aoi (who dragged random people away from their busy lives in New York, to take their photos), stunning cinematography, beautiful music and one of the best acting performances ever captured on film, this is the perfect film for today's world that is suffering the cost of excessive greed. It is a magnificent film for promoting environmentalism and of treasuring the beauty of the things we take for granted.


I was a bit surprised by the sometimes frank and honest dialog coming from Aoi Miyazaki's character in what for the most part is a very family friendly bit of Japanese young love/first love cinema. But it is appropriate for her character, a set-to-mature-at-any-moment young woman deficient in some necessary growth hormones needed to push her over the edge (that when triggered by a first kiss could ultimately be her ... undoing) and seems trapped in young adolescence. It's a very cute and cute-funny, and really sad, sad, film. Miyazaki teeters the edge between coy and seductive so well it made me dizzy ... with delight. I could, however, understand her pouty lipped attempts at cuteness turning some folks off. She does slip out of it each time very quickly, though. That's part of her charm, I guess.

The film is beautifully photographed. The 'heavenly' forest is fairy-tale gorgeous, as are the three young actors we spend time with. The story is engaging too, clearly a novel-adapted one.


As always, I was mentally prepared for this movie and its moving and deep plot... So I took some Kleenex and pressed play.

Photography in this movie is one of its strongest points besides acting, both of them are just magnificent; and directing obviously was the same way for getting the previous mentioned points that way.

The story never gets boring, it's just fun, entertaining. And, as every movie should be, it creates many feelings inside of you through your way watching its images and listening to its beautiful music.

Don't forget to watch every single second of the movie and the credits, with beautiful still photographs on it.

One of the best Japanese dramas out there, don't miss it.


Yes, that's right. I am a real male but i cry after i watch this movie secondly, i cry, ah! Whatever, i am a real male, this movie is telling us how to give love with pure heart not with anyelse, we should give love because we should not because anything.. This movie telling us too, that we shouldn't get word "late" for anything especially for love in this case. We teached by this movie to see other not by sight but by value of truth, yes, Sizhuru is a good-kiddy girl, Miyuki is a good-mature girl. Whatever this story is good, we teached not to lie too. Yes, this movie teach us a lot about basic lesson like Sizhuru's words and Miyuki's which is told to Makoto. I cried because i remember someone (not me) i know closely, like them, oh..


Here is a film I had wanted to see for some time and finally tracked down a low-quality bootleg video of. I am quite a fan of unusual films like this, although unlike the works of David Lynch or Alejandro Jodorowsky, the weirdness of this film comes naturally from the storyline and not from any intentional strangeness just for the sake of strangeness. William Castle has created a neat, compact, self-contained movie universe here, with the setting being an odd juxtaposition between a dark Gothic castle and sunny Northern California. I couldn't help but be reminded of Tim Burton's "Edward Scissorhands", another modern fairy tale about a mad but gentle genius and his near-mute misfit assistant in a dark old castle surrounded by a sunny '50s style suburbia. In fact, call me crazy, but I will bet that Burton has seen this film before and was possibly inspired by it while making his own film. There are other similarities to that film: the genius dies leaving the misfit to fend for himself in the outside world, the villains are in a motorcycle gang, the misfit falls for a local blond teenage girl, and he also performs his "magic" for children in a school classroom. Also like the films of Burton, there is a mixture of visual motifs from the past and present, including silent-movie style story-cards, Alex North's heady music score, and a motorcycle gang.

Sadly missing, though, is a highly compelling storyline, but in this case style over substance is not such a bad thing. This film is hard to classify, as it is not completely horror, modern fairy tale, or art film. I think it would be best to classify it as an experimental curio - one of those films like "Eraserhead", Jacques Tati's "Playtime", "Cabinet of Dr. Caligaryi", or "El Topo", which have no conventional film equivalent yet continue to garner a following from a small group of adventurous filmgoers. If you are attracted to films such as these, you will not be disappointed with "Shanks."


This must surely be one of the most neglected fantasy films of all time. By all accounts a flop at the time of it's release, it has become the hardest to see of all William Castle's movies. It's also in colour, which is another rarity from this director. French mime/actor Marcel Marceau plays the title role of Malcolm Shanks, a deaf mute puppeteer who scratches out a living putting on shows for children, while bearing the brunt of a miserable home life with his money grabbing brother and sister-in-law, who take all the money he earns for themselves. One day, an elderly professor (also played by Marceau in a dual role) sees his puppet show and offers Shanks a job - to come to his home to assist him is some experiments involving the artificial stimulation of dead animals via electricity, or something...why or how it actually works is not expanded on, but it involves small implants being attached to the muscles and these are then activated by means of a small control box.

Due to his background with puppets, Shanks proves to be very adept at controlling the movement of his first animals (a dead frog, and later a rooster). However things take an unexpected turn when he turns up for work one day only to find the professor dead in his armchair, seemingly from natural causes. Shanks has all but been hounded out of his own home by his cruel relatives, and he realises that desperate measures are needed to avoid going back there...and so the professor becomes the first human subject for re-animation.

What follows is the beginning of a macabre and dreamlike fantasy. The "awakening" of the dead professor is one of the most ghoulish things I have ever seen. Marceau is famous as a physical performer, and his depiction of a dead body being artificially roused into movement is very skillful. With a shock of white hair, sunken face and glazed white eyeballs, the professor's body jerks up off the ground and begins to wobble around the laboratory, as Shanks perfects his manipulation of the control box. It isn't long before he feels confident enough to take his new puppet on a stroll into the streets outside, and this is the start of an escalation of events that you really need to watch to get the full enjoyment out of.

This is almost a silent movie for much of it's running time, with long scenes involving no dialogue whatsoever, but the film is so effective in holding your attention that you will barely even notice the fact that nobody is talking. Shanks himself never speaks at all, but the support character all talk naturally when required - except for when they are dead of course! And some rather charming silent movie-style subtitle boards on the screen fill in any required exposition. The acting in this film is amazing, I suspect that Marceau is not the only performer to have a background in mime or theatre, as when he has to animate other dead characters, the movements are always effectively creepy.

If I have any criticism, it would be that Castle - as he has often done before - stays shy of making the film as truly horrific as it could have been. He never exploits the "yuk" factor of the dead bodies, and there is no allusion to bloodshed or decomposition at any time. William Castle is an oddity among horror directors in that he always puts on the brakes before his subject matter goes to deep into unpleasant territory, whereas others would gleefully revel in the more gruesome aspects of a story like this, Castle seems to prefer to keep things suitable for family viewing! Plus, the movie even ends with a tacked on "it's only make-believe" epilogue that completely squashes the very dark ending of the real story...it's something he has done before, and it seems a shame that the films of William Castle are often sabotaged from being truly horror by the directors very own sensibilities.

That notwithstanding, I would call "Shanks" a success, as it holds your attention constantly throughout. If any one thinks Marcel Marceau's talents end with a white made-up face and leotard, they should see him in this...he is perfect for the part, effective in bringing his whole character to life without speaking a single word. The film is a true oddity, but almost impossible to classify. Ultimately, it's just a unique and bewildering experience, and I think everyone should see it.


Producer-director William Castle may have too often been dismissed in critical circles as a Grade Z Hitchcock or for having been little more than a gimmick-laden showman during his peak years, but nobody could have sensibly predicted that he would eventually be saving his greatest trick for last; in fact, SHANKS was Castle's directorial swan-song and it might well be his best film as well!

The artform of the mime is one that, understandably perhaps, hasn't been treated much on the silver screen (in this way, it elicits comparison with the classic ballet-oriented THE RED SHOES [1948]  which, similarly, adopted a stylized look throughout mixed with an adroit sense of the macabre); the most famous example is, of course, Jean-Louis Barrault's unforgettable Baptiste in Marcel Carne's LES ENFANTS DU PARADIS (1945) and Marcel Marceau (who has died fairly recently) can be said to be the only mime artist that is renowned worldwide. Consequently, it comes as little surprise to see him feature in a couple of cult movies over the years  Roger Vadim's BARBARELLA (1968) and Mel Brooks' all-star comedy SILENT MOVIE (1976), where his presence extended to just a cameo in which, ironically, he utters the only word of dialogue in the whole movie!

SHANKS is another thing entirely: Marceau not only has a dual role and does the choreography but, for the most part, is virtually the whole show. As on-screen support, he has three talented actors  Tsilla Chelton and Philippe Clay (who are very adept at miming themselves)  and the young Cindy Eilbacher. The film was produced by Steven North, son of composer Alex who received another Oscar nomination (his twelfth) for his brilliantly inventive score  by turns playful, poignant and brooding  which, in a film like this, with very little dialogue and the intermittent use of intertitles, is as important as the on-screen characters themselves. Castle (who even has an amusing, unbilled cameo as a storekeeper) also employed other renowned Hollywood veterans behind the camera here, namely cinematographer Joseph Biroc (their third collaboration) and production designer Boris Leven.

The film itself has rightly been described as one of the strangest ever made (the subtitle "A Grim Fairy Tale" is most apt!): it deals with a deaf-mute puppeteer (Marceau, naturally) who, abused by his harridan sister and her boozing partner, takes comfort in his friendship with a little girl he meets at the fair and an eccentric dying scientist (also Marceau, made up to look almost Caligari-like) who experiments with reanimating dead bodies (most notably a frog) via two portable electronic devices. After the scientist dies and is buried, the puppeteer takes possession of the re-animating devices himself and, inevitably, they come in handy when his relatives die (one he kills himself in self-defense at the scientist's mansion with the help of a re-animated rooster and the other  when beside herself at Marceau's lateness  is mowed down by a speeding car outside their house in the middle of the night!); he takes them shopping and has them wait on him and perform tricks when he invites the girl to the doctor's mansion! Their idyllic tryst is short-lived, however, when a gang of bikers burst in on them to treat a wounded member of their party

Watching SHANKS (which is the puppeteer's surname, by the way) right after Robert Hartford-Davis' CORRUPTION (1968), I couldn't help but be reminded of that film's analogous last segment (right down to the 'dreamy' coda); here, however, Castle has a trump card up his sleeve when a biker steals one of the doctor's electronic devices and fools around with the zombified 'servants'  the puppeteer, on the other hand, re-animates the scientist who, together with the servants now back in his control, beat up the gang. The narrative seems simple enough on paper, but the film is very much a unique experience (albeit an acquired taste, given the occasional longueurs brought on by its deliberate pace)  amusing, surreal, weird and disturbing. Certainly among the highlights is the puppeteer's re-animation of the scientist  whose movements made me think of a Jekyll/Hyde transformation as performed by Jimmy Cagney!!

Unfortunately, the print quality left much to be desired: it seemed like a tenth-generation VHS copy, with the detail all soft and fuzzy and the picture excessively dark to boot; being a Paramount film, one hopes that Legend Films  or, better still, Criterion  will eventually get the opportunity to give this bizarre gem a decent release and, consequently, the exposure it greatly deservessince Paramount themselves seem unwilling to do anything with it!


Malcolm Shanks (as played by Marcel Marceau) is a deaf-mute puppeteer, who scrapes by on odd jobs and lives with his money-grubbing sister and her drunken husband. When Malcom gets a job with a local mad scientist, he finds the doctor is experimenting with reanimating the dead (so far, only frogs) and when the doctor dies, Malcolm tries his hand at reanimating the good doctor, with interesting results. Now, Malcolm's sister and brother-in-law also bite the dust, and so Malcolm is given the opportunity to re-animate them as well, with very interesting results, and fairly humorous, too. Malcolm's one true friend is a teenage girl who he then proceeds to have a party for at the deceased doctor's home, and unfortunately things go awry when a crazed motorcycle gang crashes the party. This is most likely the oddest film Willam Castle ever did, and certainly unlike his 60's efforts, at least, those I've seen. The mix of horrific and whimsical in this, unfortunately, doesn't always work & it could have used a bit of a darker touch, but apparently Castle was somewhat of a big softie. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, this is not commercially available anywhere, so you'll have to poke around for it if you're interested. 7 out of 10.


SHANKS by its very rarity has conjured a reputation it does not deserve. The story is one of the oddest ever put on film. A deaf/mute puppeteer learns how to animate dead bodies. He re-animates the aged inventor who shared the process with him. He re-animates (after he arranges their deaths) his evil sister and brother-in-law. He then arranges a birthday party for a young girl he likes, where the wait staff are his dead family members. Then a motorcycle gang bursts in, starts drinking and spreading mayhem, rapes and kills the young girl and festoons themselves about the inventor's castle. Our hero re-animates the inventor who one by one kills them all, although he does get the honor of offing the leader of the gang himself. The one woman biker seems to disappear entirely from the script.

The direction is awful as is the screenplay. Totally illogical actions and responses predominate and it takes seemingly FOREVER to complete a simple act. The whole end of the film from when the bikers enter seems to go on for an eternity.

Marcel Marceau does a marvelous mime job as both our hero, Malcolm Shanks, and the Aged Inventor. Fellow mimes, Tsilla Chelton and Philippe Clay, play the evil siblings. It is worth one's time to watch these masters of the art at work, even though the vehicle is so shabby.

As it's practically a silent film (over 90% without dialogue), Alex North's comedic and atmospheric musical score provides much of the pointed direction as to how we are supposed to react to these curious events and as such had a functional value to the film, which resulted in an Oscar nom for Best Music Score.

If you're really hard up for something to watch, or are fond of mime, it's a go. Otherwise, turn to the weather channel.


A deaf mute named Malcolm Shanks (Marcel Marceau) is a puppeteer. He lives in an abusive home with his alcoholic brother (Philippe Clay) and constantly complaining sister-in-law (Tsilla Chelton). He's also in love with sweet Celia (Cindy Eibacher). He goes to work with a scientist named Old Walker (also Marceau) who uses electricity to bring the dead back to life. Old Walker dies and Shanks decides to use his discovery to make his life better.

A REAL weird film from William Castle--his last film as a director. This is almost impossible to see--I taped it off TCM where it played at around 3am! There's a reason for that--it's pretty terrible. It tries something different but doesn't succeed. You know you're in for something different when this starts off with a title card saying "William Castles presents A Grim Fairy Tale"! There's very little dialogue--most of the information is conveyed through title cards (like a silent movie). Marceau is very good in his two roles and manages to convey all his emotions by facial expressions and body language. The rest of the cast is just OK. It starts off pretty good but slows down half way through and (for some reason) Castle totally ignores the horrific aspects of the story and plays it more like a comedy. It completely derails at the end when a motorcycle gang pops up out of nowhere to wreck havoc! It's a odd movie alright but it's very slow, dreary and frankly just dull! It's commendable that Castle tried something different--but it just doesn't work. Castle himself does a cameo as a grocery clerk. I give this a 2.


If ever there was a director who should have remained solely a producer it is William Castle. Though an extremely likable presence in his films (he cameos as the grocer in this one), the lovely man hasn't an ounce of talent as a director. Inspired in his choice of projects and endlessly innovative in promotion, he is hopelessly at sea when it comes to the most basic rudiments of competent film-making. His entire career reads like a catalogue of ingeniously promising themes ruined by his pedestrian direction and artless execution.

"Shanks" is no exception. It is so flat and unsophisticated that it is rather hard to believe that this film was released a year after "The Exorcist". Apparently Castle failed to learn anything about pacing, camera placement or the handling of actors after working with Roman Polanski on "Rosemary's Baby" (one shudders at the thought that for a brief moment William Castle actually intended to direct "Rosemary's Baby"). In fact, in Castle's own memoirs he practically admits to being so preoccupied with budget and time constraints on "Shanks" that Marceau virtually directed himself. The premise of "Shanks" is enticingly weird, it's too bad another director wasn't at the helm.

"Shanks" doesn't quite know if it wants to be a dark comedy, a horror film or macabre fantasy. Firing on all guns, William Castle fails to make any of those elements gel. It's merely a showcase for some very tedious mime antics and sloppy editing (the death of Shanks' drunken brother is so poorly done that it wouldn't pass muster on YouTube). Budget limitations keep hitting you in the face along with the meager talents of the supporting cast (What's up with the 48 year-old Marceau being paired with the 16 year-old female lead...even as just friends they look pretty creepy together...and really, by 1973 weren't biker gangs sort of played out as embodiments of anarchic evil?). It lacks any semblance of mood or atmosphere. The look is strictly 70s TV movie and the "performances" are MST3 worthy.

I sat through the "Shanks" somewhat flabbergasted that this was the best that Marcel Marceau's first starring role and William Castle's last directing effort could yield. After waiting several decades to see this film (the ad campaign was more inventive than the film) I couldn't have been more bored or disappointed. Castle wastes a great idea, a talented mime, and the time of every viewer. Talk about out with a whimper


I had never seen (or heard of) this flick before last night, when it aired on TCM. This movie is like a strange, experimental post-hippie-era bad dream. I'm not sure what to make of it, actually. 5 minutes into it, I knew it was going to be bad (or "bad") in a good way, and was resentful that I was gonna have to sit through the entire thing to let the Gnosis sink in. But by the end, I was glad I had. This flick is truly creepy, without (I think?) intending to be creepy (or as creepy as it actually wound up being, since the movie DID bill itself as a "grim fairy tale"). Some very surreal elements (perhaps "unlikely" or "poorly scripted" masquerading as "surreal"): ex.: the bikers carrying their dead companion, funeral-procession-like, into a house they've never been in. Other creepy elements: corpses being made to blow out birthday cake candles for a young girl (as if anyone would want a cake with corpse-breath all over it) and, shortly thereafter, the same corpse inadvertently cutting off its own finger while slicing the cake. Some of the "reanimation" scenes are truly amazing and freaky: bodies rising from the ground at the oddest angles, seemingly defying the law of gravity (part of the mime's craft in the film: kudos) with arms and legs askew- quite amazing to watch. I'll cut this short, but I was very glad I was able to accidentally catch this movie last night, and I would definitely recommend it to fans of oddball cinema, mimes, zombies, puppets, or William Castle. PS- the peculiar ending of the movie (suggested by the beginning) made me like it even more. And I would normally have given this movie an 8 on its own merits, but for being so absurdly original, I gave it an extra point. Ta.


Malcolm Shanks is a deaf/mute street puppeteer who's enlisted by a aged scientist to assist in experiments to reanimate dead animals. When the mad scientist abruptly dies, Shanks carries out his work, using the dead doctor's own body... and before long, more bodies begin stacking up.

Love it or hate it, "Shanks" is one of those films that leaves an indelible impression on everyone who's seen it. Sadly, that seems to be very few. This is not a mainstream movie by ANY stretch, but it certainly deserves to be better known than it is. I first caught the film on TV decades ago and, while I didn't clearly remember the specifics of the plot (of which there's very little) until I caught it on TV again last night, I vividly remembered the corpses skulking about the screen. There's something intensely and appropriately creepy about the actors' performances as the dead bodies.

Although "Shanks" is artier than the usual William Castle fare, there's traces of the director all over the movie, from the camera-work to the humor to the makeup (the dead doctor looks uncannily like the blind woman from "House on Haunted Hill") to the hallucinatory sequence to the gimmicky silent-film cards (there's very little dialogue) to the director's cameo. Unfortunately, like most William Castle films, it loses steam as it nears its conclusion. The climax features a group of bikers who appear out of nowhere to threaten the titular hero. I love a bad biker flick, but it was an element that felt wholly out of place in this film. Further marring the movie, the final minute or two felt like an insult to the previous 90 minutes of surreal grotesqueness.

Still, despite the shortcomings of the finale, the performers are incredible to watch, the production design is beautiful, the use of sound and music is superb and it's nice to see Castle was still making unique films right up to the end of his career. If only Paramount would give this never-available curio a widescreen DVD release, I'd be a happy camper.


Taken in the context of the 1970's, "Shanks" reflects the distorted perceptions of the time. Castle mixes beauty with the macabre, innocence with violence, and poetry with symmetry. While the film accomplishes much , it does so for only limited amounts of time, but what the film fails to accomplish through the script, does more to reflect the time period in which it was made. The craziness and drug infested 60's, had now become the distorted 70's, and the vision of America had become perverted. Kinda like today with a freakish Federal Government, and the control freaks trying to run their own asylum.

Castle succeeds on some levels, in his comparisons, but the film really moves slowly, especially without the use of much dialog.

I really enjoy a Castle film, and have viewed this one , only once, and final time. I think Castle knew this would be his swan song, and tried to create something artful and deep, to silence his critics. It appears to have mixed results. The film is a work of art, but like most works, should be seen in a museum. If you can get past the premise of reanimating dead bodies with a few well placed electrodes, and enjoy a slow moving film, then this would be your cup of tea. I think William Castle was at his best when he simply made film to entertain, and thrill the audience. This film gets a 3 out of 10, simply for the fact that you cannot bore the audience, and there is too much wasted space between the action. The actors do a fine job, but , not enough to carry the film.


Watching this on TCM as I type this. I recorded it to my DVR from TCM's airing last night- 3/12/10, in case anyone wants to get technical about it;)

My impression of this 1974 movie "Shanks"?

IT'S THE ONLY MOVIE CREATED FOR PEOPLE OVER 90.

It's dreadful. Extremely slow and needless to say, boring. The humor, or rather attempts at humor fall very, very flat. So flat in fact that what should be construed as humor comes across as mean-spirited, creepy and obviously to my eyes not funny. I mean trying to import Marcel Marceau's unique brand of French humor to U.S. audiences? Who thought this was going to work? William Castle apparently.

Poor Marcel. Watch him proudly strut about the American? countryside looking utterly and completely out of place. This debonair older sophisticate should be strolling the streets of Paris in his trendy euro fashions. Instead he's playing Uncle Creepy to a young blonde girl, who apparently has no friends or family even though she lives in a charming house with perfectly blooming flowers. The American kids just outside her door feign interest in Marcel Marceau, I think they merely humor the old creepy French guy into making him think that he's entertaining them.

Throughout the movie Marcel is stuck with an angry, confused look of "why the hell did I decide to make this movie again when I could have stayed in Paris drinking Absinthe?" And speaking of drinking, this movie is awash in Bombay Gin®. The product placement incidents actually out-number the cast members. No really. In one scene at a general store there's a shelf fully stocked with Bombay Gin®. So as clearly as the gin itself, this movie fueled by gin. Which explains a lot actually.

Oh god. I just watched a scene that involved the brother of Marcel's character being attacked by a reanimated rooster.

To illustrate this scene here I will provide makeshift screen captures to get across the immense lunacy of this movie:

http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/8048/image030g.jpg http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/7955/image029a.jpg http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/4836/image028s.jpg http://img532.imageshack.us/img532/1905/image027n.jpg http://img532.imageshack.us/img532/9040/image026k.jpg http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/9454/image025ww.jpg http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/1715/image024qk.jpg http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/2791/image023ck.jpg http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/2702/image031bt.jpg

Shortly after this scene the be-wigged mother is struck down and killed in a hit-and-run accident in which the driver asks the important question of Marcel's brother Barton; "You didn't see anything did ya?"

I certainly wish I hadn't!

This is one of those movies in which I would have LOVED to have sat with a paying audience as they watched this thing unfold before them when it first came out. I dare say their reactions, most likely followed by their stampeding to the exits, would have made the price of admission worth it.

So I'm going to go back to giving my full attention to Shanks because I don't want to miss one priceless moment..

However, I still maintain the masterstroke in Marceau's (brief)film career was his brief appearance in Mel Brooks' 1976 movie "Silent Movie". It was such a brilliant thing too because Brooks made a silent movie for (then)modern cinema. And guess who had the only line of dialogue? Of course: Marcel Marceau.

So I will echo his one word utterance from that brilliant and funny 1976 Brooks' film to describe this 1974 experiment titled "Shanks":

NO!


I was lucky enough (?) to see this film, kind of. If you are up and it is 3:00 a.m. and you are watching showtime on digital cable and see Shanks. You'll probably change the channel or see Marcel Marceau and think that it must be intellectual. If for some reason you then decided that you should see what people on the internet think, you have wasted far too much time. If you are an insomniac, you are in luck. I have problems falling asleep and tried watching this movie three times. Because frankly, the storyline made me laugh. All three times I made it no further than eight minute intervals. Should you choose to continue viewing... best of luck to you.


As the Bourne series raises the bar for action films, and audiences balk at two-plus hour runtimes, the filmmakers of Vantage Point seem like they are trying to bring a fresh, new, unconventional take on the action/thriller genre. Though it may annoy some people, I felt the new take turns Vantage Point into a taut terrorist thriller.

The new take or approach is jumping right into the moment (everything is already planned out, people and weapons in place, etc.) of the action and then telling it from eight different points of view. This is where some people may be mildly irritated because after you see one point of view everything is suddenly rewound and shown from the next person's point of view (this is done six times) before they all converge into a thrilling finale filled with one massive adrenaline-fuelled car/chase sequence.

Because of the complex twists and turns of the plot and characters I will be brief, very brief actually, on the plot. It starts with a TV network covering a large gathering of leaders from all over the world (including the President of the United States) who have come together to form an alliance against the war on terror. At the beginning of this meeting the US president is assassinated as he takes the stage, and it begins replaying the assassination through all the different points of view. The editing must be commended in this film as it blends all the points of views so sophisticatedly you cannot help being engrossed, and the star-studded cast includes Dennis Quaid, Mathew Fox, Forest Whitaker, William Hurt, and Sigourney Weaver simply adds to everything.

In the theater I was watching some people called out their annoyance of "again?!" on the fifth rewind, which I find amusing as the filmmakers are simply trying to come up with something new in these sequel-ridden times. And probably as those same people say Hollywood is "out of ideas" they get angry when it tries something "different" and would rather go spend their money on Spider-man 8.

I felt Vantage Point was an intelligent thriller, and yes it had its' share of implausible plot points, but these were minor as the new technique makes you feel like you have an all-seeing surveillance system. I kind of felt like I was putting a puzzle together, piece by piece, and as you see a new point of view it adds more to the story and just when you think you have it figured out it changes again.


I must admit I went into the theatre interested, but skeptical. Slowly, I got drawn into things, and by the time the we were at the fourth vantage point, I was fascinated by how all the stories interrelated with each other, and wondering the story would end up.

The acting is uniformly excellent, especially that of Dennis Quaid, who I had previously considered a mostly comic actor, but is very convincing here as a Secret Service agent.

The direction and script are also excellent, especially when you consider both are first-timers in the world of feature films. The script was not without its clichés, but I didn't see most of the plot twists coming, which I can usually spot coming a mile away in a film like this. There was one real groaner of a plot twist that you'd have to be an idiot not to see, but it goes by so fast that it doesn't really matter.

A lot of the audience in the screening I was at got frustrated by the repeated sections, obviously having no attention span. But once the third act of the film kicks into gear, everybody stopped complaining.

Speaking of which, the third act is the payoff which we've all been waiting for. Seeing all the plot threads converge in such a convincing matter was nice, as was the final action scene, which seems like it was plucked right out of one of the Bourne films. This comes as little surprise, since director Pete Travis and Bourne series director Paul Greengrass have worked together in the past.

As skeptical as I had gone in, I came out impressed. Not since The Bourne Ultimatum have I seen such a convincing, engrossing action thriller.


What can I say? This film is a gimmick film that relates the same event through the eyes of eight different characters that each hold a piece of the puzzle. The film stops and rewinds back to 20 minutes before the event for each character. It gets a little annoying because each time it stops, the audience is left on a cliffhanger which carries the film's tension into the next character.

As for what the film promises, it promises a good puzzle, suspense and intense action. It delivers on all accounts. This plot has twists and turns and is completely logical. Half way through this movie, if you think you got it all figured out, you haven't got a clue.

The action is fairly balanced through out the film and keeps the film moving. The car chase in this film is one of the better ones I have seen in a long long time. It had some shots in it that I think were a small homage of the original The Italian Job (1969) car chase scene.

Even though I personally thought that some of the characters were paper thin, many of the actors gave strong performances that made the characters believable. Forest Whitaker was the best. I had a little problem with Dennis Quaid's character, Secret Service Agent Thomas Barnes, starting out as the thinnest of all the characters but he grows in the film. Of course, Edgar Ramirez, Saïd Taghmaoui, and Eduardo Noriega were right on and make the film (but not as much as Whitaker).

The premise of this film makes a refreshing change from the ordinary style of mainstream movies.


I was lucky enough to watch it during an event of a company I work for. I really enjoyed this movie, because of it's editing, wonderful actors and full packed action.

The movie tells the same story from 8 different persepectives, most of them from a character view, makes the puzzle clear till the end. Some puzzle parts can be guessed but this makes the movie so fun to watch.

Matthew fox acting could be better, but the others are convincing. Cheers to Ayelet Zorer, an Israeli actress who surprises again with her beauty and acting.

If you like thriller, action and car chases all in same movie then this movie is for you.


Some reviewers make it out to almost be a B-movie, but it isn't, not by a long shot.

The story revolves around the assassination of the US president who is attending a counter-terrorism summit in Spain. The film is told from multiple viewpoints and the events that transpire within a 23-minute time frame, thus a Groundhog Day-like experience.

Vantage Point is really just an action film . . . pure and simple. When seeing this film, don't expect a complex and deep storyline; it certainly isn't that. The proper approach is to just take it for what it is. I liked this film because it had no pretensions. It didn't want to pretend that it needs to be over-analyzed by the viewer. There are no lengthy sub-plots and behind-the-back conspiracy pieces, no need to explain who is fighting for what cause. And if you approach with this frame of mind, then I assure you, you won't get bored or disappointed.

It's a movie that doesn't need to be analyzed ad nauseam. It doesn't care about needing to tie up lose ends and explain all the circumstances surrounding the assassination. Approach it from *that* "vantage point" and you'll appreciate it more.


Vantage Point is a camp delight! By the film's end I was waiting for our shaky-handed, Secret Service hero to rip-off his shirt to expose a big Superman letter "S" on his chest! Terrorists who blithely slaughter innocent people left and right will throw everything out the window over a single child! You know a bomb has just been planted but you keep standing around talking. A bomb goes off right under your nose with loads of people lying dead and wounded but our various heroes barely have a scratch except for their tattered clothes! The Secret Service is totally inept except for one guy with shaky hands! I think you get the picture! But the best scene is one of the last. Its when the President snaps awake at just the right moment, after just being drugged, and kloncks the bad guy over the heads with a piece of metal all because the villains conveniently failed to strap him down properly! But just moments earlier taking out a score of Secret Service agents was a walk in the park!

I did find the 'Groundhog Day' technique of repeating the same day over, and over again, but from different perspectives, to be a very interesting approach to story telling. Too bad it was wasted on such a unbelievably ridiculous story! It's as if Hollywood's main concern is satisfying it's teenage market segment over all others. I'm not a teenager and I go to the movies virtually every week! What about the adult segment of your market? Don't we count for anything?

This film is trying terribly hard to be a frantic 'French Connection' type movie without worrying much about the story. If all you want is dumbed-down, murder and mayhem, a sort of terrorist war-porn flick, then Vantage Point is for you! But if a decent story is an important ingredient in your recipe for time well spent, then I humbly suggest renting something that has stood the test of time, like the French Connection, instead!


It didn't really look that way from the previews (looked more like a whodunit) but it is. It's like SPEED or THE FUGITIVE in that way and like RUN LOLA RUN in it's structure. So if you like those films I'd say it's a safe bet for you. It also has a really great car chase scene and this is coming from someone who usually doesn't "get" those. During that whole sequence all I could think was 'how did they choreograph that?' because it had to be really precise. I mean the cars were almost dancing.

You have a stellar ensemble cast here. Forest Whitaker plays a witness to the events who gets caught up in the whirlwind. I don't think I've even seen him run before so this was a little different for him. Matthew Fox and Dennis Quaid play secret service men. I was surprised how little screen time Fox had and if there is a star it's Dennis. I don't think it appeared that way in the trailer either. But mainly the whole thing was split up between all these different characters and their vantage points on this assassination attempt on the US president in Spain. William Hurt plays the president and I'm thinking I'm going to write him in in November. He just looks the part. Sigourney Weaver plays a TV producer who is a witness as she's producing the live coverage and for a minute I thought we didn't see her vantage point but her's was the first one we watched. We were watching along with her and I didn't realize we were already doing the multiple point of views thing. They all culminate at about the same point and once we've seen all of them the action continues from there into a perfect ending.

This film really gets going right away and there is no time for a potty break. There isn't a lot of cursing, just a couple words here or there, and not too scary violence so people who watch "LOST" and "24" level action should be able to handle it. This is the sort of movie you used to only get in the summer.


The start of "Vantage Point" was so good that it actually got my hopes up as I thought I was going to be in for a good action thriller. It's too bad that after the assassination of the President (William Hurt) shown through the scope of a CNN type cable News broadcast (GNN- instead of a "C" it has a "G." Get it? CNN? GNN?) the story is pretty much over, so they add some action scenes and car chases because they're all out of ideas. Sigourney Weaver is very good in this five minute opening scene that throws us directly into the fire without any set up once so ever. It's just BAM!! Even though we know what's coming- which is routine throughout the film- it's still a very effective start. Then, we get the same thing played back to us over and over again from a large quantity of people's perspective. Instead of becoming interesting it becomes boring and trivial. It's no longer effective. We've seen it all and we become increasingly more impatient. Even though everything is always not what it seems, and everyone is always looking at same thing and seeing something different we know where the film is going, but it drags in getting there.

The trailer gives away one of the huge plot twists in the film (I think there was supposed to be another, but that could also be seen from a mile away. Think- Rogue. Cliché? You bet.). The President used a double and it was he who was shot. Did the double die? We'll never know. I think the writer or director of the film forgot because of so many flashbacks. What does it want to do? They know they want to show the assassination of the President through the eyes of many, but as the plot expands to such wide extremes it just becomes muddled in its own fecal matter. Eventually the film is no longer about perspective, but about car chases and shootouts. This is where the plot holes come roaring in one after another and the overly done clichés continue. Dennis Quaid gives one of the worst acting performances of this millennium along with the guy from "Lost," who has such a big secret, both he and the writer can't wait to tell you. They hint at it long enough to actually make you wonder if they're stupid enough to go through with it, so you may doubt what they're going to do, because it's set up so poorly. You think they're trying to trick you, but trust your instincts. Expect terrible clichés and you'll know exactly where the film is headed.

The dialogue was horrendous. The coincidences were through the roof. The predictability starts in the trailer. I was laughing at it, literally, laughing at its terrible execution. There was no substance to this once so ever. It's like they got to a point were they were done with all the flashbacks and said, "Let's have a 10 minute car chase and a bunch of shootouts." I loved when the guy from "Lost" turns around after he's carrying the President off the stage and looks at Quaid and says "find that shooter!"

It's just so laughable. The car chase is terrible. For some inexplicit reason a little girl that Forest Whitaker takes a fond liking to is running through a highway- that for some odd reason isn't closed off during or after such an incredible event. An ambulance truck driven by terrorists are flying down the highway at her as she stands in the middle of the road screaming for about 30 seconds. It was like "Austin Powers" where they make fun of movies where they have morons standing in the road screaming for a long time instead of steeping back off the road and avoiding the oncoming car. As the little girl stands there screaming, coincidentally, the driver is preoccupied and not looking at the road (Yes, that cliché). When he turns around, he sees the girl in the street so he flips the truck instead of killing another innocent life. For some reason he tries to avoid her. This guy is responsible for killing a lot of people, but now he quickly grows a heart. Then Forest does something that is completely shocking. Not!!!! Just another cliché that has been done before. There's just nothing here to get excited about. It starts off good then continually get's worse and worse and by the end you'll find yourself watching some of the worst scenes in film history.

"The beauty of American arrogance is that they can't imagine a world where they're not a step ahead."

Interestingly enough this quote came out of this film and interestingly enough the filmmakers add to that "arrogance" of always being a step a head. Look who lives and look who dies when some of the people who don't look like they're going to live end up living. More Pro-American, Anti-Anyone else clichés.

"Vantage Point" is one of the most ridiculous films you're ever going to come across. Especially, when you're watching Dennis Quaid turn into Superman as he brushes off bullets, or when he jumps out of a car that was T-Boned into a building with him getting crushed in between the car and an 18 wheeler that weighs about 10 tons. He simply jumps out of the car, unscathed, and brushes off his shoulders. That's not a joke. That's actually what he does. This was more effective as a comedy and what made it so funny was that the filmmakers took it so seriously. This film is a joke. Another stinker for 2008 for Forest Whitaker to add to the heap of crap after his great performance in "The Last King of Scotland," which seems decades ago. Now he looks like a below average actor, which he might be.


How do we begin?The President is shot, Secret Service agents chase down a "shooter", unconnected characters intersect in increasingly meaningless ways. Oh and did I mention the GROUNDHOG DAY-esqe time rewind? Audible audience laughter is not what you expect to hear in a thriller. When a film with such a reasonable premise is butchered and ultimately ends up dying an ignoble death, my first question was where was the strong hand of the director? Or the screenwriter? This film stinks of heavy handed hacking after test audience screening. It must hurt to lose control of your film.

I was teased by what appears on paper to be a stellar cast-William Hurt, Dennis Quaid, Sigourney Weaver, Forest Whitaker, Hollywood's favourite LOST boy-Matthew Fox. I can only hint at the angry disappointment I felt after the credits rolled. All of these actors have performed admirably in similar roles--here they are groundless, and the prestige they could have brought to the film is squandered.

Sigourney Weaver brings some pathos, only to be cast aside when her story plot is terminated. Dennis Quaid tries his best as the Secret Service agent trying to quell his demons, but he's not Clint Eastwood, and this is not IN THE LINE OF FIRE. William Hurt can be Presidential in his sleep, give him some depth please. Matthew Fox has no reason speaking bad Spanish when his co-pilot is speaking perfect English, Forest Whitaker does his best mumbly, stumbly, heavy faced bit, but his part in the story is simply meaningless, I'm happy he gets to reconcile with his wife and son, but please people, The President has been shot, blown up, kidnapped, drugged and tossed around an ambulance in a multi-car pile up....so is it ESSENTIAL to waste a final shot on Forest talking on a cell phone to his unseen son??...Someone must have some minutes to use up.

Ultimately VANTAGE POINT is half the film it could have been, it lacks sufficient character motivation or back story, the characters are caricatures, the script is diluted to the point of meaningless and while it sports a great climatic car chase, the final scene is as implausible as they come-----a highly trained band of ruthless conspirators, toting the latest in high tech gadgetry, killing co-conspirators as they see fit, assisted by an inside man, successfully pull off TWO intricate operations and on the road to getting away scot-free, only to be undone because an irrelevant character JAYWALKS!

Come on, we are smarter than that and as film makers you should be smart enough to know that.


I just got home from seeing an early showing of this film and I just must say, "OH MY GOD...". Within the first 5 minutes easily, I was so engrossed that I couldn't look away. It was very intense. And although some may find the constant 'rewinding' to be annoying, I just found that it made it that much more awesome. Every 20 minutes or so you're right on the edge of your seat and are left hanging until the very end. It's one giant tease, but it's totally worth it. Definitely one of the smartest, and most well executed movies I can remember seeing. The whole ensemble is absolutely flawless. It had the perfect combination of action, suspense, and humor.

I just can't say enough good things about this movie. Please, go now.. and enjoy.


Inside Plaza Mayor in Salamanca, Spain the president (William Hurt) is preparing himself to make a speech on the anti-terrorism international summit

For months, President Ashton has been working with leaders from five continents to take a stand against global terror Security services were on high alert But suddenly agent Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid) saw something like a flash of light and two shots were heard The president appears to have been hit It also appears there was a mysterious woman with the name of Veronica (Ayelet Zurer) throwing 'something' underneath the podium

But soon Barnes discovers that something has gone rogue and there's something else going on It's like somebody has been set up It's like this war will never end

Viewed through different points of view and multiple perspectives, "Vantage Point" is an extremely energetic motion picture featuring the best I've seen of car chases used to maximum effect by director Pete Travis


I love the correlation between the Arab's comment of American arrogance making us think we are always one step ahead of the world and the fact that this film falls into the same exact trap. I understand the concept of multiple viewpoints on the proceedings, as well as the rewinding to show us those differences, however, if you are going to do it, only show us what we missed the first time. Not to spoil anything, the sequence of a character throwing a bomb underneath the presidential podium is shown four times as it is seen by four peopleare you kidding? We know the person did it the first time, gloss over it and get to what we DON'T know. A gimmick can work if it is utilized to full effect. However, I can't really complain about that because the entire concept of the film is false advertising. Eight views, one truth? Not really. More like eight people with plot progression story lines that add up to the one truth. These people aren't seeing different things and coming up with different conclusions, they are only giving us the full picture rather than incomplete snippets. The tricks involved are great, in theory, but it seems that the filmmakers needed a lot of padding for the short script and decided hiding information and/or cutting away when the truth is apparent in order to show it later would be a more fun way to tell the tale.

My real problem is the fact that we as an audience are played with at every moment. We are teased with answers and made to sit through a new character's account that holds 75% old information with only 25% new before we are actually given what we should have received twenty minutes ago. Where is the cream filling? Vantage Point ends up being all flash with no center to hold it together. It is a real shame because the plot and conspiracy going on are well thought out and planned. Maybe if it was a straightforward short film it would have been great, but as a feature, recycling footage and manipulating what's on screen in order to extend the runtime, it just plain fails. Also, the ending is real corny, clichéd, and obvious.

I wonder how much of its trouble comes from a very extended cutting period. I saw the first trailer for this film in June 07 and it only came out yesterday at the end of February 08. Something is fishy there. Maybe they cut all the backstory, because honestly, there is absolutely none on display. We are never told why all this is happening; why people's allegiances have been changed; why a hero secret service man is "punishing himself" for what he did, (considering we only know he took a bullet for the President, we have to assume he did something after to make it appear that he might step out of the line of fire the second time); or why the orchestrator of it all is seemingly working on his own. The movie shows us just enough to get by and then throws a new twist so that we forget we haven't really been told anything. I guess the fact that America and Arab nations are at war and trying to come to a peace accord is enough background for us to believe this would all happen so quickly without any other nation's support.

I can't disregard the work completely, though, because this cast is amazing. How they got everyone involved, I have no idea. Dennis Quaid does his usual stern face of contemplation, but he plays a secret service agent always on the job, so it is acceptable. Matthew Fox is a lot of fun especially later on when he lets loose a bit and has some fun. Forest Whitaker is probably the best thing the movie has going for it and shows that he can elevate any role given to him. He is pitch perfect with every emotion he is made to elicit after the tragedies that unfold in front of him. There are so many other people that it would be tough to get to them all, but mention for Edgar Ramirez and Saïd Taghmaoui (both desperately underused in Hollywood) and new face Eduardo Noriega needs to be made.

In the end, Vantage Point becomes a by the numbers blockbuster that takes its possibly intelligent plot and dumbs it down completely in order to be served up to the lowest common denominator of the American public. Arrogance becomes the word of the moment as Hollywood has become so much so that they decide they know what's best for the country, churning out mindless action, brainwashing society into feeling that any movie that asks for thought is just boring. With a smaller budget, a more unique vision behind the camera, and the guts to let some carnage and desperation be shown, this might have been great. Instead we are shown a story that flips the supposed winner and loser roles. Where the terrorists think of American arrogance, it ends up being their own egos that ruins them. They think they have beaten democracy with their guard down, but in actuality they just turned a blind eye to the fact that one man could single-handedly have the fortitude to take down an entire cell by himself while his fellow agents think he is crazy, and a little friendly coincidence that every person he runs into has video footage of the exact moments necessary to put the puzzle together. Man those terrorists can be so stupid.


I just came back home from seeing this movie and I wanted to share my thoughts right away because this movie was disappointing. While the concept is interesting, the execution was very poor.

I will start my review with the good points. The first good point about this movie is the suspense. I must admit that I got hooked right away by the story. You see the president of the United States being shot but nothing is what it seems. The rest of the movie gives you the answers bits by bits. The second good point about this movie is the acting. Almost every character in the movie is believable and the performances are quite solid. Two thumbs up for Dennis Quaid in his role of veteran secret service agent Barnes and to Forest Whitaker who impresses me with every single performance he gives. Not only does he plays convincingly, he impersonates every character he plays (Last King of Scotland anyone?). However, Taghmaoui and Zurer are the weakest link in the bunch. That's it for the good points. As for the weaknesses of this movie, they are many.

I will start with the factual errors that plagued the whole movie from start to finish. The movie tells us events that happened during an international counter-terrorism summit. However, the host country is not represented by the Spanish prime minister or any other high ranking Spanish politician. The country is represented by the mayor of Salamanca who offers his city to the world. OUCH!!! Actually an International summit is organized on a state level and only the President (Or prime minister or Chancellor etc) of the host country is responsible of the city and the facilities that will be used for the event, not the mayor. This is an international summit for God's sake not a municipal trivial event. Secondly, in such summits, the general public is not allowed in the premises of the event as depicted in the movie. That is no way to have such a large crowd present during an announcement of such importance. The only people who could have been present would have been high ranking officials, head of states and important leaders, not average Joes. Furthermore, the protesters wouldn't have been allowed to be that close to the premises of the event. There's always a security perimeter that the general public can never cross and it's usually quite large.The second main weakness of the movie is how its subject matter is treated. I assume that the main subject of the movie was terrorism. However, the story doesn't give us any objective treatment, actually it's biased. Terrorism is again pinned on Arabs, as the summit unites Arab states and the West. There is no explanation as what western countries were present, it just states the West. There are no subtleties. There is no mention of what leads to terrorism or the way to confront this dangerous phenomenon. Therefore, terrorists in this movie are depicted as your usual stereotypical bad guy. There's not even a remote attempt to explain their background or the reasons that push them to do what they do or to believe in what they believe. They are just terrorists who want to hurt civilized countries. Later in the movie you'll learn that the attempt on the presidential life was a vendetta by the terrorists because they failed to smuggle a dirty bomb out of Morocco. Wow! How credible is that! Suffice to say that it's more likely for a dirty bomb to be smuggled out of Pakistan or Central Asia not out of Morocco. The third main weakness of the movie is its character development. It's actually non existent in this movie except for Thomas Barnes, Howard Lewis and Javier. There is no development for the other characters in the movie. Who are they really? What motivates them to do what they do? The terrorist bare Spanish names but are they truly Spanish? What led to the betrayal of Kent Taylor (Mathew Fox's character)? Was it ideological? Does he hold a grudge against his government? We don't know and the movie makes no effort to give us a clue. The last weakness that I will list here is the narrative style used to tell the story. We were supposed to see the story from the perspective of eight different people. However, this choice is ambiguous and not well executed. For the first two thirds of the movie you can really see the story from different perspectives. While this may be interesting at first, the constant rewinding sequences become boring and redundant by the third time. Many people left the auditorium after the third time and I couldn't help but close my eyes to avoid watching the rewinding sequences again. When the movie reached the final third, it was apparent to me that the director didn't know what he was doing anymore. The perspective story telling is totally abandoned and we are actually led to see the perspective of three different characters at the same time. This choice makes the first 60 minutes of the movie totally irrelevant. Why did the director choose to start with a specific narrative style and then abandon it for the final 30 minutes? Why didn't he stick with a conventional story telling style from the start? Did he want to make a Rashomon style movie? Was he trying to use a Pulp Fiction type of storytelling? If that was his intention, then he totally failed to accomplish his goals.

All in all, I give this movie a 4 stars out of 10. It remains a suspenseful and thrilling movie but its flaws outweigh its strong points. My advice: Watch it once, forget it and don't expect to see or learn anything new from it.


I thought this film was excellent! I heard some people complaining and saw some of the complaints here on IMDb, but this film is genius. Of course it shows the same scene over and over- that is the entire premise of the movie! So for people to say that it bothered them...well, they must like more uninformative plots, i.e. Jumper.

The film starts off with a stickler of a news producer shouting off orders to camera men as the President enters for a speech at a world meeting in Spain. The President, obviously, is shot, but it was the loud and unexpected BOOM that caused me to jump. From there the story rewinds to 23 minutes earlier at 12:00. It replays from all the different vantage points several times. Seeing it over and over is not annoying, though, again, those who might prefer a less engaging story might think it is. Each time the scene rewinds we learn something new about the conference, the people attending, and where the "gunmen" are located. Each scene leaves you on the edge of your seat exhaling slowly as you wait for your adrenaline to slow. The ending is also so explosive and heart-pounding, I held my husband's hand with the "grip of death" in anticipation. This film is definitely worth the overpriced ticket at the box office. It deserves to be seen on the big screen.


I enjoyed the movie. Dennis Quaid and Forrest Whittaker carried the movie and made it an enjoyable experience. For anyone that is easily made motion sick, the camera work is very shaky during the chase scene and had it lasted much longer would have detracted from the overall experience for me personally. The way the story was told was different but kept me engaged right to the end. I would recommend seeing this film if you get the chance.There is a little something for everyone here. Action, drama, a couple of jokes, and some nice views. There are some actors in this movie that may not be well known, but overall I think everyone in it did an adequate job. If you are a fan of Dennis Quaid you should really like this movie.


Vantage Point really didn't have any redeeming qualities. It really failed on all fronts, none of the technical aspects were especially good (but, to be fair, not especially bad either), and the story was so mottled it just got annoying. The concept was kind of interesting, and I guess executed well but without a solid plot to begin with it doesn't really matter. The acting was alright, it wasn't terrible but wasn't anything Oscar worthy either. The thing that got me with this movie was how the plot dragged on...and on...and on. For a thriller that is supposed to be action packed and only an hour and twenty minutes long, I was actually dumbfounded at how bored I was only half an hour in, and how painful the idea of another hour of this nonsense was to me. The plot is pretty basic, the President is shot and people have to find out who shot him and why. If you've seen any movie like this before (and don't let the concept of the film throw you, it is just another political thriller like the Bourne movies) you can pretty much figure out what's going to happen before it does or won't be surprised at anything that happens. The problem with the 8 viewpoints concept is that instead of adding to the scope of the film, it really limits it. You see the same events happen 8 times, and by the third time I was sick of it. The fact that the film conveniently decides to start over right before a plot twist is revealed just tells me that it didn't have much of a plot to begin with, along with the fact that a rather large twist regarding the president is revealed IN EVERY SINGLE TRAILER FOR THE FILM. This movie is garbage, I would have been happy with a basic thriller with a concept and it couldn't even manage to deliver that. If you want to see a good film with this concept, see Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon, not this one.


Vantage Point starts off with the incident that you see in all the trailers. An incident is all the story real amounts to. We watch the first POV from that of the news crew -- however, it is real not a point of view of any specific person, we just follow the action of certain people -- when the story reaches a certain point we quickly rewind to the next POV (kinda) from the same time (which time-code on the screen becomes part of the films laughable points) the first began.

In all, we watch a very repetitive story, and not much of an actual story at that. No character study, depth or explanation of why any characters do what they do (only a slight history on ONE character). While you do not need and in depth character study for all films, usually there is someone you emphasize with.

As I watch the film, the fourth time the story rewound, the scoffs in the theater had become out-loud laughs, and not the good kind, the kind that tells you the rest of the audience agrees with your own thought of how stupid the film really is.

In the end, there is no real story and surprisingly mediocre performances from actors who usually perform rather well. This usually indicates an unskilled director. When most actors in a film look bad, including those usually good, it is the director! Other than an attempt at a film exercise of some sort, when the film was over I could only ask, "What's the point of Vantage Point?"


I don't want to give this 1 star, I wanted to like it, but it failed on so many counts to be either impressive or clever it's all it deserves.

The story line could have actually said something, 24 hour media, terrorist threats, international cooperation, a US president doing something International - not unilateral. But it seemed to start an idea and then give up on it.

I enjoyed the back flipping of time, but the continuity was terrible and the plot holes were too big to be forgiven. I'll allow a certain amount of coincidence in a film. But to accept all that this film asks is too much.

Even the car chase, which was exciting and well shot, was horribly let down by the lack of continuity (damage and car badges, signs, models) If you don't want a European audience that's fine - but at least try to hide that it's mostly shot in Mexico. Do we shoot in Australia and claim it's the US? Finally. If i did forgive all of the above, and accept it as an action film with a few faults. The dialogue would still have been rock bottom. I've never heard the sound of a cinema audience's collective eyes rolling before.

I know i should have read reviews first. But I'm trying to make up for it by writing this one.


"Vantage Point" seemed like a typical political thriller from the trailers featuring car chases, shootouts and explosions. In watching it, you can see that it is pretty much just that with its plot of presidential assassination and some clever terrorists who are one step ahead of the way throughout most of the movie. This is nothing unfamiliar to anyone who has seen a few action movies in this type. Where "Vantage Point" steps away from the crowd is by literally showing us the same set of events from different viewpoints one at a time. The film literally rewinds and we are placed in a new position to see the same thing over again.

This allows much greater attention to each unfolding story line as each is viewed on its own. The story develops as if it were after the incident and the audience is looking through an investigator's point of view as they collect information from witnesses. It is frustrating as the information comes in pieces that can only be added up to a whole once they have all been examined. With every rewind and restart there is some redundancy to be gone through only to be given the next piece of incomplete information. With this unconventional approach "Vantage Point" strives to be about something more than just a typical action movie. The new perspective forces a new look at this typical formula. For instance in one view point we have a secret service man hesitating whether to make a call about a suspicious window and in the next view point we see that someone in the audience sees him looking and looks back and forth amongst the windows to get a glimpse of what could possibly be happening. In any linear sequence much of these shots would be cut for pacing and time, but in this arrangement with each perspective shown separately you are given each character's moment in the scene uncut. This, in effect, makes film slightly repetitive, but it also gives it a more detailed thoroughness that would make the scene seem dragged out in a linear arrangement of events.

This all serves as a setup for the climatic scene where everyone's role becomes clear. "Vantage Point" may not be truly an original an daring thriller as it bears several clichés. However, with its interestingly unfolding story and plot twists it is most definitely a solid action thriller. --- 8/10

BsCDb Classification: 13+ --- violence


I enjoyed Travis' film about the attempt of an assassination on American President at a anti-terrorism conference in Spain. It features good performances from Quaid and Fox as well Whitaker. I liked the way the director approached the idea and it was a good entertaining movie for the most part. Don't look for too much substance or for it to make an out of the ordinary statement, but its a good action movie of its sort. I liked the cinematography by Amir. Mokri, and thought it was edited well too. Overall not an amazing movie, but worth watching. Good job by production team -IMDB Rating: 6.7. sdfkjsdflkjsdflkjsdf sdflkjsldkfjsMY Rating: 8/10


Vantage Point is a movie directed by Pete Travis and written by Barry Levy. The movie follows the events of the president getting shot and goes through several different characters or different points and shows the event as they see it and what happens to them. The cast includes Denis Quad, Mathew Fox, William Hurt, Forrest Whitaker and Sigourney Weaver.

This movie was well under the radar for me as I didn't hear of it until seeing the trailer on a DVD for some over movie; I think it was "The Assignation of Jesse James by The Coward Robert Ford." So once seeing the trailer I automatically thought this looked like a ripper of a movie and I wasn't let down.

The story is greatly written and intertwined, i couldn't help but wonder how awkward and mind bending it would be to have read it on script.

Great acting by all in the cast, except for Mathew Fox, for me he just seemed like a less talkative Jack. Forrest Whitaker took the highlight for me though; he always steals the screen in a movie and doesn't fail here. His facial and tone just puts through to you the character greatly and makes you understand who is a lot better. Dennis Quad is his usual self and not much to say there, he is an American tough guy actor. I also though the two less Hollywood actors Edgar Ramirez and Said Taghmaoui did great job in portraying their characters and were stern on screen.

The movie was put together and shot great, when you just think you're about to find out something from the plot the rewind happens the camera angles are lined up great to keep you guessing.

I quite enjoyed this movie and found nothing at all bad about it. I'm giving it 7 and a half President shooting stars.

7.5 - www.dylanreviews.ning.com


Not only in the movie itself, but also as far as the reviews/voting/ratings are concerned here on IMDb. Of course everyone has their opinion on any other subject matter, that's why it's always interesting to read other peoples views, to see from which point or perspective they viewed the movie.

Having said that, which could easily be seen as a smooth intro into this movie (I hope you'll see it that way), this movie has a political message, but it doesn't thrive on it too much. The movie's purpose is to entertain the audience and not to make them political activists. There's still nuances and (political) criticism to be found here, if you look closely.

The whole movie is gravitated by Dennis Quaids performance. Of course this is an ensemble piece/movie and the other actors are great too, but he's the one, that grabs our attention the most. Which helps you go through the first 10 to 20 minutes of the movie. They're a bit slow (especially compared to the finale of the movie) to say the least. You can also criticize the movie for it's dialogue, the fact that it seems to go in different directions, once it starts, but then again, these things were all done on purpose.

Try to enjoy it is what I'm saying and don't go into the movie, trying to spot every little continuity error. Here's where I have to point out one thing I read in another review. Again I respect the fact, that the reviewer didn't like the movie, but he was angry at the movie, because it was shot in Mexico, pretending that to be Spain. Well suffice to say, that the reviewer is from Spain, so he should know if that is true or not. But saying that's a bad/negative thing and asking, if Europeans would do the same is hypocritical. Because Europeans have done the same. German westerns shot in the former Yugoslavian Republic, pretending that was America! Or even the Italian (Spaghetti) Western mostly shot in Spain(!) also pretending that was the USA!


This movie is just plain awesome! i gave it 9 because Its one of those action packed thrillers where your dad goes " Oh it was him ! he did it!" gets really cocky about it and it was someone so unexpected. This is because most people cannot guess what will happen because the movie is ingeniously clever. The action sequences are very well handled. Many people say that they got very bored watching the explosion again and again , but i found this interesting as each time you see it from a different view point and each time it gives something else away and leaves you on a cliffhanger, wondering what will happen next. This stylish action packed thriller is great for all the family!

YOU'LL LOVE IT - unless you don't ?!:P


I always have liked thrilling exciting films that also were puzzling for various reasons.

Vantage Point is such a film. It examines an assassination from the viewpoints of a few of the many spectators, There are many surprises in the fast 90 minute (including 6 minutes of credits)running time.

Pete Travis ably directed from Barry Levy's screenplay. NOW in films like this down thru time, the screenplay we watch rarely was logical or made much sense. We do not see thrillers for great stories. We see them for excitement's sake.

The acting by a large cast both known & little known actors are all first rate. Since the film was made in both Spain & Mexico many non-Americans are cast in various roles to great effect .

Dennis Quaid does his usual great job, so does Forrest Whittaker, Sigourney Weaver, Mathew Fox & William Hurt. also cast are Spanish,Mexican actors Eduardo Noriega & Edgar Ramirez & are as expected just first rate.

One other actress I must mention is Ayelet Zurer . This fine actress played Eric Bana's wife in MUNICH, 2 years ago & here she gives another fine performance.

This is a worthwhile film, just sit back & ignore the improbabilities of the story. NOTE. Any one remember how improbable North by Northwest was. We watched & enjoyed the goings on.

Ratings; ***1/2 (out of 4) 96 points(out of 100)'IMDB 9 (out of 10)


Surprisingly fresh for a relatively unknown director , perhaps , the best ultra-real action film of the year , 1000% better then self-proclaimed pure action like Wanted !A story of an abduction of the US president , played by great W. Hurt, is somehow reminiscent of the following genre of macabre war thrillers : The Domino Principle , The Parallax View , Enemy of the State , except that it is told from different perspectives, thus the title ! Great acting by everyone ( D. Quaid is brilliant as always ) , fast-paced camera angles , and great car chase, totally believable with Opel cars !The only minus to this film if you like waiting for the end credits : it was made in Mexico and not in Spain 's Salamanca , but still convincing ! Perhaps one of the best films of the year !


i didn't know what to expect from this film. i can say that there were plenty of plot twists that will surprise you and keep you interested throughout the movie. one annoying factor is the constant rewinding back to 12:00 noon. that part gets very annoying but its pertinent to each perspective being told.

another part i didn't like was the subtle clue to who was involved in the plot(quaids partner or whoever.dude from party of 5) because it made me automatically point out that he was involved nearly an hour and a half before he was actually implicated. if you notice when he's talking to Quaid in the car and Quaids just talking about being around and thanks him and his partner makes a face and says "Dont thank me yet" ..very subtle clue that goes thru one ear and out the other of most but once i heard it i knew he was either involved or was gonna be killed pretty soon, i was sure he was involved and just as i suspected he was. a movie is never as good to me when i pretty much figure it out early.

Forest Whitaker gives another great performance, albeit a small one. he was charming, informative, curious and even remorseful all in one character. he risks his life for a little girl who he previously had bumped into and keeps her out of harms way to find her mother after an explosion, these events magnify the events going on in his own life(battle with his wife) and make them actually seem much smaller when he thinks about it...good addition to the movie the whole subplot with the one guys brother being kidnapped has nothing to do with the movie. i don't know why it was in there but it easily could have been done without....

the remote controlled gun was amazing lol.. that part surprised me a lot.

overall a decent movie but if you expect it to be groundbreaking throughout you will be a little disappointed.


Vantage Point is one of those movies that you're either going to love or hate. If you're a fan of movies like "Crash", the "Bourne" series, or any other film with interlocking stories, odds are that you will enjoy Vantage Point. If you have a hard time stretching your mind, have a short attention span, or are totally not a fan of Dennis Quaid or Forest Whitaker, then you probably won't enjoy the film, plain and simple.

The plot, despite being very deep and complex, is actually quite simple on the surface. What you've got is the interlocking stories of several people, all of whom play a pivotal role in the assassination attempt on the President of the United States. The film is not without its political views, however, and this is to be expected. What I enjoyed about the complex plot is that it didn't TRY to be complex. It didn't rub itself in my face, and it was easy to keep track of who was who, and what they were doing.

The film features some high profile names, however, we need to remember that most of said actors have never done this kind of movie. Only one of the performers actually manages to develop a good character (and of course, it's the best performer, Forest Whitaker), but half of this problem is due to the screenplay, which is obviously going to be more plot and story driven. It's a paradox, because the filmmakers definitely want the viewer to like Dennis Quaid's character the most, yet there's little effort in developing him outside of his professional life. Forest Whitaker, as said earlier, gives the best performance of the movie, and one of the better supporting performances of the year. I really enjoyed him here. Edgar Ramirez was also very admirable, as was Said Taghmaoui. Matthew Fox and Sigourney Weaver both have very little screen time, but aren't bad at all. Fox's character is another that had a lot of potential, but the screenplay lets him down.

Pete Travis is the film's director, and I've got to say...the guy knows how to copy other directors. It felt like an episode of "24", with bits of the "Bourne" movies thrown in, along with the feel of "In the Line of Fire". I'm still reserved about him as a director because I saw nothing new from this movie. While the plot twists were good (again, that's the screenplay, not him), and the action was very well done, I couldn't help and think that I had seen it all before in other films. HOWEVER! Despite my complaints, the film is wonderfully edited (Oscar worthy) and has top notch cinematography. It sounds great as well.

In short, Vantage Point has all the trademarks of a well made film. Some good people put a lot of dedication into making this movie as seamless as it is. The screenplay is lacking in the character development area, but more than makes up for it in the story. I definitely look forward to more from this wonderful crew.


As others have suggested, vantage point wud be a gud return on your money if you went to see a thriller with action sequences, blasts, car chases and a lot of shattering glass.

Vantage point is a story of an assassination attempt on US president from 8 different viewpoint, each revealing something new about the events. This repetitive nature of the plot gets frustrating after a while. The concept worked for run lola run but a thriller like vantage point is supposed to go forward not rewind itself 8 times.

If u are in the theater to enjoy a thriller and not bother about the plot, well n gud, you would come out a lot happier. But if you expected anything more then the loose storyline would really disappoint you.

The writers have a lot of explaining to do. If any of the people responsible for a US presidents security would have watched this movie then the writers are in a real soup. just 7 guys guarding the presidential suit, with outsiders having access to the hotel and a local guy working as bell boy (who easily sneaks in guns and explosives into the hotel), a single guy wiping out each of the agents (even rambo would hv had a hard time at that). At the venue where the president gets shot the bad guys are able to sneak in a remote controlled fan and gun right under the nose of the secret service.

then no one bothers to explain why gud guys were blackmailed to assist the plot when the same thing would have been easier with dedicated bad guys, the role of the rouge camera man, role of the rouge secret service guy, he risked his life just to retrieve the gun (I don't think the bad guys were that pressed on funds that they needed to retrieve the assassination weapon), massive car chases on 2 lane streets, at times even going the wrong way, colossal explosions sparing the lives of just the important members of the cast.

well all in all a very mediocre thriller


It was a decently good movie. Decently well put together. I mean at first I thought this was about war and terrorism, but its not, its more about the story. Its a thriller that you want to see to the end, and it got me on that, once I got past the first 15-20mins, I was interested to see what ends up in the story. It's not predicable, which is good. But the actual end scene (spoiler part) bothers me. If you have the president of the united states kidnapped in the back of your ambulance and see a kid in the middle of the street; if you know that if you swerve you're going to tip the ambulance, then you run over the kid, the damn kidnapped president of the united states is in the back of your ambulance, one kid in the street ain't sh*t.


Director Pete Travis gives us a pulse-pounding, quick-cut action movie. U.S. President Ashton(William Hurt)is in Spain to address a global summit on terrorism. Just after stepping to the podium in the crowded town square, he is hit by an assassin's bullet and almost immediately the crowd is rocked by a bomb. In the confusion the leader of the "Free World" is kidnapped. Secret Service agent Thomas Barnes(Dennis Quaid),previously wounded taking a bullet for the president, back on duty quickly takes a look at a tourist's(Forest Whitaker)camcorder thinking the shooter can be identified. Sigourney Weaver is a CNN producer, who also has a point of view of the event. The movie you may say unfolds as it "rewinds" the same chaotic minutes from the view of several involved characters. The most exciting sequence happens when Agent Barnes ends up in a thrilling car chase after one of his own, Agent Kent Taylor(Matthew Fox). Quite an amusement park ride of a movie. Others in the cast: Bruce McGill, Ayelet Zurer, Edgar Ramirez, Zoe Saldana and Eduardo Noriega.


This is a great investigation into the challenge of having a merely sexual relationship with someone without letting emotions come into it. But, eventually emotions come into it because sex is more than just the release of biological urges. The two main characters Josh and Cin are perfectly portrayed by their players David and Susie. I'm sure they would have put a bit of themselves into their roles. The toughest part would have been filming the sex scenes and for the director filming the scenes without a hint of pornography. My rating: 8/10


I get so tired seeing heroin thin, twenty-somethings in romantic comedies, especially ones with lots of nudity. This one has the luminous Susie Porter reclining, pacing and prancing around nude, with the most fantastic confidence and comfort with her body. She doesn't have the perfect body mind you, but the type that I love more than a Hagen-Daz milkshake. She's got some meat on her bones, but she isn't fat. She is voluptuous, curvaceous, with the sweetest milky white, freckled skin. Her smile can take your breath away, and her eyes seem like they can see every lie you've ever told, and you want her to know. She's a WOMAN, a real woman, not some kid trying to be a woman. Most times with *women* you get lots of trying to be younger, but Susie LIVES in her body, her soul is older, wiser and more mature. She knows how to treat a man too. She lets a guy be a guy without sacrificing her will or self-esteem. Oh, I'm supposed to review this movie... OK...

Basically in this excellent flick you are watching two adults fall in love. Both are mature and confident, but they're leery of jumping into a relationship, but it never lingers on past baggage, and nobody needs to "get free" of some obstacle before they can continue. I've found that women rarely say they're ready for love, or looking for love, but if it presents itself to them they won't chase it off. Basically a woman is never NOT ready to fall in love, and this movie does a great job of showing men how a woman who isn't even THINKING about falling in love, can. It also illustrates luxuriously how head games, lies and bullsh*t are NOT the way to enjoy falling in love. Most young people think that head games are the only way to get what you want, or how to protect your heart, which is toss-all. Here two people say what they mean and mean what they say, and what they don't say they don't say because they're not sure yet that they feel it.

Have you ever met someone and it just clicked and while it was clicking you spent a day or three in bed? This movie sumptuously wallows in that intoxicating experience. These two people devour each other sexually and while they do, passion blossoms and intimacy becomes more and more desirable. I can't remember a movie that so eloquently illustrates the difference between lust and passion, between sex and intimacy.

Buy this movie now, you will not regret it, but watch it with a lover because watching it while you're single will make you jones too much for the real thing and that could be depressing. View it with someone you love and it could re-kindle a little magic, it will at least get you laughing and getting aroused in the same room.

A movie about adults for adults that makes you feel like a kid.


This movie is very very good. It is highly enjoyable, definitely a couples movie. David Wenham and Suzie Porter are great as the leads, they are definitely one of the only screen couples that actually had chemistry, it was amazing to see. It is very funny, and very sexy, and very Aussie, what else can you ask for in a movie?

The direction in this movie is very well done, the story is good, I really loved this movie. And at times this film is better than sex! Congrats to the Producers you have yourselves a winning movie. 10/10 from me!!!


I really enjoyed this movie, it was very funny, sexy and the two leads (David Wenham and Susie Porter) were fantastic. I never for one second lost interest in this movie, there's always something going on, usually something funny. The supporting cast were good, especially Kris McQuade the taxi driver. The direction and script were really good, the music is very enjoyable, especially the music for the bath scene. Overall I think this is a great movie, and should be seen by all. 10/10 from me.


This film is so funny and everyone who watches this film in some way or another can relate to it..the acting is absolutely brilliant and it is a fantastic directiorial debut for Jonathon Teplitzky...The production is excellent...the film is predominantly shot in an apartment....very enjoyable film...


To be honest I cant get enough of 'Better than Sex'(BtS). I was thoroughly disappointed when the end credits began to roll. Since I viewed it on cable TV, I flipped a channel and watched it all over again. I hold very few movies in such an esteem to rate them 10/10. But BtS is definitely one of those rare diamonds.

BtS is a very intellectual and honest look at the dynamics of the one night stand, the following passion, the possibilities of more. Seen from both the male and female perspective it's so engaging to see and feel the raw honesty. As a male I was constantly agreeing, laughing, nodding and completely understanding Josh's (David Wenham) position with his actions and thoughts. I so loved the balancing female - Cin's (Susie Porter) perspective. I felt this was how it really is. BtS is an optimal example of reality.

From the initial meetings to the scared first steps, the initial sex to the first words the next day, the progression of knowing nothing to seeing the unfolding of a relationship not yet defined and blossoming. The doubts, insecurities, the ensuing pointless fights, walking out then making up. The development of passion and the emotional content that creeps in uncontrollably is magnificent in its simplicity and handling.

As an audience I became so drawn to the characters. I felt in tune with David Wenham's Character and was left with a crush on Susie Porter. This movie is all about character, development and that proverbial 'human condition. So basic I would assume it was filmed on a shoe string budget, but you never know it. The cinematography, camera angles, accompanying music, the introspective and intermittent 'interview' style was perfect. The sex scenes are tasteful and never 'dirty', the chemistry was electric between Josh and Cin.

I am not usually a fan of pure Australian film. But BtS showcases how an intellectual, witty, and powerful character driven story tackling a very real plot should be done. A definite movie to get... a saucy, raunchy and potentially winner of a movie to see with a new partner. However be warned, BtS is clearly marketed for adults that demand that bit more depth in the intellectual and honesty stakes.

A challenge: Try not to fall in love with either one or both of David Wenham or Susie Porter and their characters. And I bet you will love the Taxi driver :D


I vacillated between giving "Better Than Sex" a 6 or 7 star rating for quite some time, but in the end it really is a better film than just "a little" above average. The movie - a study and portrayal of two people engaging in sex with a "light-hearted" attitude is compelling, realistic, entertaining, and completely delightful.

I know I'm not supposed to refer to another voter's comments, but I totally agree with someone who wrote that they saw this film again immediately after their first viewing. It really is that watchable.

Shot in Australia, its unpretentious and unassuming treatment of sexual obsession is light years away from other (particularly American) films with a similar theme , such as "9 ½ weeks". There's no gloss or "spit and shine" polish here. No Kim-Bassinger- siren nor Mickey Rourke bravado with sweat dripping off the main characters as though they were screwing for the Olympics. There are just two horny buggers  normal people going through the motions of God's gift to the living, (coupled with emotional entanglement).

And hey, what could be better than that?