In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.

Example input: 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 )
Example output: N
Example explanation: The phrases used in the review convey a negative sentiment (e.g. "presents it in a very bad package").
Q: since director steven zaillian previously wrote the powerful screenplay for 1993 's steven spielberg drama " schindler 's list " and directed 1993 's intelligent " searching for bobby fischer , " his new film , " a civil action , " should most likely be looked upon as an unfortunate misstep in an otherwise prosperous career .
what does n't make sense is how such high - profile and superb actors as john travolta , robert duvall , william h . macy , and kathleen quinlan got involved in this project , which is both dull and completely ineffective .
the film , which involves a small community of children who mysteriously died of leukemia , certainly contains the type of story to be emotionally - charged , but somehow all signs of feeling have been completely removed from the proceedings , leaving us with nothing more than a poorly - done courtroom drama .
based on a book by jonathan hart , which was consequently based on a true account , " a civil action " is set in 1982 in the town of woburn , mass . , where personal injury lawyer jan schlictmann ( john travolta ) decides to take on the case of eight families who simply want an apology for their children 's death from leukemia due to unknown causes .
jan originally decides to drop the case , but when he stumbles across to corporate giants , grace and beatrice foods , who have plants located near the families ' homes , he sees all of the pieces suddenly fall into place : the two companies have been leaking harmful chemicals into the nearby lake which , thus , goes into the city 's drinking water .
suddenly , after hearing about the families ' heartbreak and personal stories , he begins to care for them and becomes determined to get to the bottom of the mystery , even though he is warned by his staff accountant ( william h . macy ) that no money is coming in to them , only going out .
also figuring into the story is jerome facher ( robert duvall ) , beatrice foods ' corporate counsel , who finds himself in heated waters when jan will not accept his $ 20-million offer to settle the case .
coming from such a talented writer , director , and cast , not to mention one of the most interesting film composers , danny elfman , " a civil action " is an astoundingly empty - headed drama , one that includes an intriguing story and somehow transforms it into an admittedly tiresome and occasionally even boring experience .
perhaps one of its major problems was that in its attempts to be a relatively uncommercial motion picture , zaillian has misplaced its refreshing unconventional attitude with an absence of magnetism and even meaning .
watching the film , i could n't help but notice its similarities with 1997 's far , far superior film " the sweet hereafter , " which dealt with a lawyer , played brilliantly by ian holm , investigating a school bus accident that killed a number of children .
in his attempts to find someone who may have been responsible for the accident , holm interviews the grieving parents , as well as the sole surviving passenger , a teenage girl , which starts to remind him of his own teenage daughter , a young drug - addict who has run away from home .
not only was the plotting similar to " a civil action , " but it also had the same exact running time of 115 minutes .
considering this , it is amazing how fulfilling and truthful " a sweet hereafter " was , not only concentrating on the school bus accident , but delving deeply into ian holm 's character and his own personal demons , as well as the teenage girl .
in " a civil action , " however , i have no idea where the running time went , since the film is virtually two hours of nothingness .
we do not get to know the parents very well , nor any of the main characters .
through its whole duration , i did not learn one thing__not one thing__about travolta 's lawyer character , jan schlictmann , who does n't appear to have any sort of life or purpose outside of his job .
every scene is tediously related directly to the premise , and therefore , there was no one for me to care about or root for .
you 've got to work pretty hard , actually , to not get an audience to become involved in the parents ' plight , since their children are dead , but that is exactly what " a civil action " does .
to be honest , i would be fairly hard - pressed to state an aspect of the film that i actually liked .
aside from one flashback to when a man 's young son died on the way to the doctor , i remained unmoved and passive about what was going on in the scenes , and more than once found my mind wandering .
i could say the performances were good , but who 's fooling who ? since every character is one - dimensionally written , no one 's acting abilities are challenged in any way .
travolta plays a lawyer well enough , but that 's about all he does .
duvall
virtually sleepwalks through his role , apparently only appearing to give one - liners at every chance he gets .
and what in the world is kathy bates doing in the picture 's final scene , as a judge ?
she appears unbilled , since it is just a cameo , but why did she even agree to do it in the first place ?
finally , when the conclusion arrived and the end credits began to role , the film left me with another question : what was the point ?
abruptly ending without any susceptible momentum , where none came before that to begin with , " a civil action " seemed to me , at least , to be an example of how not to make a courtroom drama , and it certainly did not do justice to the very serious subject matter the film deals with .
A:
N