Problem: OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive negative
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Answer: I once promised never to walk out of any film ( a personal policy that made me suffer through the most different kinds of dreck, such as Rambo 3, Baise Moi, Deep Impact) - but Mr. Seidl almost succeeded. Hundstage was a truly awful experience. Anyone who sees this movie will think that Austrians are a miserable, pathetic bunch of retards. It shows a world where love and humanity don't exist, a world where people humiliate each other only for one reason - to distract from their own miserable existence. By choosing a documentary-like style with non-professional actors (most of them look like straight from the imagination of Austrian shock-cartoonist Deix) director Seidl wants to make us believe that this is real life in Austrian (European? Western?) suburbs. The viewer is confronted with depictions of sex orgies, violence against women and handicapped people, madness and degradation. But this isn't social criticism. This is just pure shock without any aesthetic value. Instead you get bad acting, bad cinematography, bad filmmaking. If anybody needs a film like this to realize that there are things wrong in our society then this person must have walked through life with closed eyes. This is pseudo-social criticism with a sledge hammer. And it looks down on people in a disgustingly condescending way. It shows ugly people - that is not the reason why I hate it. But it depicts average people in an ugly, misanthropic way. And this is why this film is truly despicable.

Problem: OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive positive
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Answer: In it's time, this movie had controversy written all over it (like most of Verhoeven's projects).

Containing very graphic depictions death-scenes; A parachute that doesn't open *smack* guys body on the floor. A guy being eaten by a Lion *chomp* teeth in the throat. And a guy being run over by a speedboat *zoom* bloody corpse going down.

But besides gore, this flick also contains some brilliant (and stunningly beautiful) scenes, filmed in the gray fisher's town that is Vlissingen;

Thousands of rosebuds flying over the screen, in a somewhat irrelevant part of the movie, a beautiful (holy) woman putting flowers in a milk-can, surrounded by slabs of blood-dripping meat and a steamy love scene between two male characters, in a graveyard.

The story is concluded in a frantic, but fulfilling 10 minutes, that don't disappoint, and will leave you sighing a breath of relief.

Of course with the pros come the cons, Some special-effects are too over-the-top, and are obviously done to see how far Verhoeven could push the gore-factor (e.g. the several eyeballs hanging out of their sockets). Also, while the two lead actors, (Jeroen Krabbe and Renee Soutendijk), do an excellent job of breathing life into their characters, the character of Herman (portrayed by the rather un-charming Thom Hoffman) just feels enormously underdeveloped, making him hard to care for, even after his tragic death.

I've done my best to give you a slight idea of what to expect of this amazing movie, and as you can see, it's not easily summed up in words. So do yourself a favor, if you happen to find this movie somewhere, watch it ! And enjoy the unique style and substance of this masterpiece.

Problem: OPTIONS:
- negative
- positive negative
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Answer:
This film actually manages to be mindless enjoyment for 2/3 of the journey. Sadly, the film ends up being too 'confused.' While I know some of the plot contrivances are standard of 'buddy cop' films I got drawn in to the characters who foil each other brilliantly but in the end the film relies too much on chase sequences as a crutch and I lost interest.

The filmmakers did a great job of getting the characters alone and doing their own thing and we got to see who they are and identified with both cops early on. We formed our own opinion instead of being force fed a view of them through constant bickering.

In the end there is too much going on and it detracts greatly from what could've been an enjoyable piece of escapism. Here's what's concerning Joe Gavilan (Harrison Ford) at the end of the film:

1. His real estate deals 2. His affair with a radio psychic 3. He's being investigated by internal affairs 4. The homicide investigation

If you add in Casey's concerns you fond out he wants to be an actor and avenge his father's death. Now some of these things do come together and even come together well but all the plot elements come together amidst this bogus chase that is so long and pathetic that I hardly have time to break my ennui and give a crap about what just happen. The impressive screenwriting acrobatics cannot overcome the bad filmmaking.

As if a ridiculous chase sequence wasn't bad enough, one which has four separate sections and could last close to half an hour, wasn't bad enough, Joe Gavilan fields calls about his real estate deal while chasing the perpetrator with a gun. All these extra-curricular plot lines and jokes make it absolutely meaningless to me whether or not the criminal gets caught. We already forgot or no longer care about the murder plot at this point because multiple plot-lines and eye candy of the chases have numbed us beyond all comprehension.

While I could go on about the chases and how they ruin a decent story, I won't. This could've been a very enjoyable formula film but it got much too big for its britches and it turned into a redundant waste of time. Harrison Ford and Josh Hartnett actually did rather well and a small appearance by Gladys Knight is worth noting. Sadly none of the actors can help this hopelessly misguided film from being forgettable.

While this will probably be better than the likes of "The Hulk" and "Lara Croft II" that still doesn't make this film good. I once heard that Harrison Ford claimed to only make films that eh thought would make money, I'm not sure if that's true or not. What is true is that to get great box office you don't need a great movie or a great actor, this film has neither in its lead roles. My advice to Harrison Ford would be: to stick to Indiana Jones because at least you can still run.