Detailed Instructions: In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
See one example below:
Problem: plot : two teen couples go to a church party , drink and then drive .
they get into an accident .
one of the guys dies , but his girlfriend continues to see him in her life , and has nightmares .
what 's the deal ?
watch the movie and " sorta " find out . . .
critique : a mind - fuck movie for the teen generation that touches on a very cool idea , but presents it in a very bad package .
which is what makes this review an even harder one to write , since i generally applaud films which attempt to break the mold , mess with your head and such ( lost highway & memento ) , but there are good and bad ways of making all types of films , and these folks just did n't snag this one correctly
.
they seem to have taken this pretty neat concept , but executed it terribly .
so what are the problems with the movie ?
well , its main problem is that it 's simply too jumbled
.
it starts off " normal " but then downshifts into this " fantasy " world in which you , as an audience member ,
have no idea what 's going on
.
there are dreams , there are characters coming back from the dead , there are others who look like the dead , there are strange apparitions , there are disappearances , there are a looooot of chase scenes , there are tons of weird things that happen , and most of it is simply not explained .
now i personally do n't mind trying to unravel a film every now and then , but when all it does is give me the same clue over and over again , i get kind of fed up after a while , which is this film 's biggest problem .
it 's obviously got this big secret to hide , but it seems to want to hide it completely until its final five minutes .
and do they make things entertaining , thrilling or even engaging , in the meantime ?
not really .
the sad part is that the arrow and i both dig on flicks like this , so we actually figured most of it out by the half - way point , so all of the strangeness after that did start to make a little bit of sense , but it still did n't the make the film all that more entertaining .
i guess the bottom line with movies like this is that you should always make sure that the audience is " into it " even before they are given the secret password to enter your world of understanding .
i mean , showing melissa sagemiller running away from visions for about 20 minutes throughout the movie is just plain lazy ! !
okay , we get it .
. .
there are people chasing her and we do n't know who they are .
do we really need to see it over and over again ?
how about giving us different scenes offering further insight into all of the strangeness going down in the movie ?
apparently , the studio took this film away from its director and chopped it up themselves , and it shows .
there might 've been a pretty decent teen mind - fuck movie in here somewhere , but i guess " the suits " decided that turning it into a music video with little edge , would make more sense .
the actors are pretty good for the most part , although wes bentley just seemed to be playing the exact same character that he did in american beauty , only in a new neighborhood .
but my biggest kudos go out to sagemiller , who holds her own throughout the entire film , and actually has you feeling her character 's unraveling .
overall , the film does n't stick
because it does n't entertain , it 's confusing , it rarely excites and
it feels pretty redundant for most of its runtime , despite a pretty cool ending and explanation to all of the craziness that came before it .
oh ,
and by the way , this is not a horror or teen slasher flick . . .
it 's just packaged to look that way because someone is apparently assuming that the genre is still hot with the kids .
it also wrapped production two years ago and has been sitting on the shelves ever since .
whatever . .
. skip it !
where 's joblo coming from ?
a nightmare of elm street 3 ( 7/10 ) - blair witch 2 ( 7/10 ) - the crow ( 9/10 ) - the crow : salvation ( 4/10 )
- lost highway ( 10/10 ) - memento ( 10/10 ) - the others ( 9/10 ) - stir of echoes ( 8/10 )
Solution: N
Explanation: The phrases used in the review convey a negative sentiment (e.g. "presents it in a very bad package").

Problem: it would be hard to choose the best american political thriller .
some people would probably pick the manchurian candidate and others ( myself included ) would pick seven days in may .
both those films were tense exercises in chills .
the two films came out within two years of each other and both were directed by the same man , john frankenheimer .
but that was 1962 and 1964 respectively .
for most of the rest of his career frankenheimer has turned out some decent films , but has shown little of the promise that those two thrillers showed .
each of those films had memorable characters and a tense plot .
they had almost nothing in the way of chases or gunplay .
the thrills all came from the plot .
ronin is like a film made by another man .
somewhere behind all the shooting and explosions and car chases there are the rudiments ofa plot , but we see only tiny pieces of it .
we get a clue here and one there as to what is going on
but j .
d .
zeik 's screenplay is a bit obscure .
the film begins explaining that a ronin is a masterless samurai .
when a samurai has failed in the job of protecting his master from death , he becomes a ronin , much like a gunfighter in the american west .
if you miss the opening , do not worry .
this film will explain again what a ronin is .
sam ( played by robert de niro ) is the modern equivalent of a ronin .
he is a free agent who seems to have really good instincts about how to stay alive the world of a professional killer .
he clearly was in a dangerous business at one time and now he seems to be drifting around on his own somewhere in france .
sam is recruited from a montmartre bar by dierdre ( natascha mcelhone of the truman show ) , an irish woman , to be part of an action to steal a mysterious metal case .
dierdre is very tight - lipped about what is in the case .
sam joins a team of four others : vincent ( jean reno of the professional / leon and mission impossible ) , spence ( sean bean , tv 's richard sharpe , and also patriot games and goldeneye ) , and gregor ( stellan skarsgard of breaking the waves and good will hunting ) .
also along is larry ( skipp suddeth ) .
the group seems to know their business , particularly sam , but each is in his own way cold and professional with his own field of expertise .
their only human side seems to be in tensions among the members of the team .
the story is not very easy to follow .
it is never clear who is double - crossing whom and who is working for whom .
somehow russians ( who may or may not be the russian mafia ) and irish radicals are involved trying to get their hands on a certain metal case .
some very good actors are involved in this film .
one wonders what they saw in the script .
the characters are mostly one - dimensional professional killers .
they know their work , and seeing their thought patterns adds some interest to the film , but for this group deep feeling between two people is teaming up with another killer so that neither is killed .
by the end of the film we never really got to know anybody .
maybe that is the secret of why such good actors took parts , since these are not very demanding characters to create .
in addition to the above characters the film also features jonathan pryce and michael lonsdale ( the latter of moonraker and of the superior thriller the day of the jackal ) . as a revival of a sort of action film that was popular in the 1960s , i was hoping that there would be something here to grab onto and enjoy .
unfortunately there are no deep characters , and little to make us care who eventually ends up with the metal case or why they want it .
i rate ronin a 4 on the 0 to 10 scale and a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale .
non - spoiler : incidentally , the tale of the 47 ronin has been filmed multiple times , usually under the title chushingura or as the 47 ronin .
also one frequently sees in japanese art the image of a man breaking down a door with a huge mallet .
this is the first blow of the 47 ronin .
Solution:
N