Friday, October 7, 2011

NYFF 2011: Not a review of Policeman (2011)


This is not a review. I refuse to review this film. It's the first film that I've seen at a film festival since I started this blog that I simply don't want to review or acknowledge exists.

I know you're saying if the movie isn't something you like, why even mention it?

I mention it because my personal mandate is that if I see a film at a film festival, especially at a press screening I mention it.

This one I probably shouldn't.

In fairness I need to mention that I walked out of the film about 45 minutes in. Nothing much was happening and I figured my life has only so much time and I could better spend it not watching an anti-terrorist cop wander about massaging his pregnant wife's legs and dealing with a sick friend who he wants to take the fall for a raid that went partly wrong.

I'm not sure what happens in the second half, but I didn't much care. The festival write up for the film said something about it being a nail biting political thriller about the anti-terrorist squad and a group of wealthy anarchists. When I left we had the anti-terrorists but no anarchists.

I'm sorry, I shouldn't be bothering to write this up but as much as I have not liked some films at the New York Film Festival (say Miss Bala or Tahrir) those films at least had something about them that made me watch them. They had something to engage me to make me angry or annoyed or something, Policeman has nothing. Its dull people doing dull things, filmed in a manner that is the dullest I've run across in years (The open bicycle ride goes in and out of focus).

Perhaps it gets better, perhaps there is something there...and had I been engaged I might have stayed, but having seen Shame and Pina earlier in the day, and police films like Unjust earlier in the year, you need to show me something that makes me sit up and take notice. There is nothing in the film that made me sit up and take notice.

Anyway...the point is this isn't a review and I never made it to the end.

No comments:

Post a Comment