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I'm surprised that this movie was really just swept under the radar mostly, and in the United States, went straight to DVD by Universal. I watched this last night, and it certainly is a pretty ambitious debut from the director, Cary Fukunaga.

The Region 1 DVD is pretty good, but slapped together pretty quickly. Very good PQ and Audio, but the subtitles are burned-in, and a few of the deleted scenes have burned-in subtitles, and some don't, so you have to turn on the subtitle button.

It actually did make it to theaters over here, or at least in San Diego.

I found this movie way too generic to be of much interest. It's got energy, but it's exactly the same energy - the "I'm the new Scorsese, me" flash and sizzle - of countless other contemporary gangster dramas. You just know burns of this film were bound for the in-trays of every studio exec the second it got out of FinalCutPro.

Is the title of this film supposed to mean that it is untitled, or is there something in there about a character without a name or something? Because if it is the former, that is kind of lame.

zedz wrote:I found this movie way too generic to be of much interest. It's got energy, but it's exactly the same energy - the "I'm the new Scorsese, me" flash and sizzle - of countless other contemporary gangster dramas. You just know burns of this film were bound for the in-trays of every studio exec the second it got out of FinalCutPro.

Spot on. Considering how "fresh" this film was supposed to be, its storytelling was utterly predictable and full of Hollywood cliches.

I thought this film was artful, without being pretentious or flashy. It was also entertaining, without pandering.

Can't think of too many first time filmmakers who have accomplished this.

swo17 wrote:Is the title of this film supposed to mean that it is untitled, or is there something in there about a character without a name or something? Because if it is the former, that is kind of lame.

The title conveys the anonymity of the characters and of immigrants in general. "Untitled" would probably have been "Sin Título."

Contemporary Hollywood gangster films or for that matter any other contemporary Hollywood one definetly tend to be flashy for their own sake, not to mention incoherent. I didn't get that from this film. Every facet of this seemed to serve plot and character first. Yes, the flash is there but considering the film's length I don't think there's anything extraneous to speak of. As an adventure film first and foremost it does work pretty well. Like with Sugar and Maria Full of Grace, the film's strongest asset is the attention to detail the crew brought to the characters and setting. Even though in this case the settings used were not always the exact ones used by passing immigrants, all involved clearly make you feel they did their research.

So it's not a bad film for a young director. In the end, a bit too obvious and not terribly inspired in its plot mechanics but no doubt it's a white knuckle ride for most of the running time. I was going to say that I was looking forward to see what Fukunaga does next. But does the world really need another "Jane Eyre" adaptation? Don't answer that.

I just watched this last night and was left feeling a little disappointed by what I felt to be thinly drawn main characters and a somewhat contrived plotline. Those criticisms aside, it was far from a bad film and is certainly a far more interesting first effort than I'm accustomed to seeing.

Fukunaga is definitely a filmmaker to watch closely but, like Numero Trois, I was chagrined to learn that his next project is yet another adaptation of Jane Eyre.

We showed this at our film society a couple of weeks back, to a packed cinema (OK - so that only means just over 70, but still...) and it went down really well.

I rather liked it, although it did seem that the main plot was kicked off

Spoiler

by the main character's girlfriend either being the ONLY person on the continent not to realise he's a gang member - everyone else does so just by looking at him - or just being really stupid by going along to the graveyard.

Still, apart from that, yes it's fairly standard gang stuff, but unlike Zedz I thought the flashiness was actually rather toned down.

And just to be contrary - Jane Eyre could work. It's got to tread a fine line between stuffed-shirt sub-Merchant Ivory and jazzed up 'contemporary' relevance - but it's on my radar.

Just saw his Jane Eyre -- it wasn't half bad

capsule comment:

Solid, generally good-looking adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's classic romantic novel. Jane Eyre is my wife's favorite book -- while I am a Jane Austen partisan. She loved this adaptation, despite noting a number of minor flaws. I enjoyed this -- but find this sort of tale way too overwrought. ;~} The Rochester (Michael Fassbender) seemed a bit too young and cute to me -- while the Jane (Mia Wasikowska) seemed (suitably, I guess) disconcertingly young. Judy Dench was quite good as the housekeeper at Thornfield.