Why do I do this to myself? After the debacle that was “Goodbye Lenin,” who would have thought I would be buying a ticket to watch a French thriller about a psychotic criminal – the first of three interconnected movies? Talk about alarm bells. Admittedly the “hugging and learning” quotient was bound to be low, but still – what was I thinking?
It’s difficult to describe the sensation of watching this movie. Imagine “The Piano,” but instead of an irritating mute, the main character is the aforementioned psychotic criminal. We meander through a series of unconnected, meaningless events, with almost no dialogue. (And no soundtrack, as my friend and movie companion Susan reminded me.) We know almost nothing about the characters, such as they are. And the movie concludes with likely the most jaw-droppingly pointless, bash-your-head-in-with-a-hammer-because-you-watched-the-whole-thing ending I’ve ever seen. And that includes “The Piano,” which nearly incited me into a machine gun shooting spree when it was over.
Stay away, in the name of all that is good in the world.