Moby Dick (1956)

Second viewing; first viewed on December 25, 1990

The captain of a whaling ship is obsessed with killing the whale which ate his leg.

One of the marvels of re-watching certain movies is the recollection of one's previous admiration for them and the acknowledgement of how it contrasts with one's present, cooler appraisal. In the case of Moby Dick, there is further marvel as one cannot understand how certain books came to become such icons of culture -- true, one has not read them, but still, does one have to? The word which comes to mind when it comes to Moby Dick and its basic concept is 'juvenile'. This is a word which does not implie absolute negativity. There is much fun to be had with juvenile stuff. But it does pose a limitation to a work's scope and appeal. The best parts of this movie have to do with extra-plot elements, e.g. the depiction of whaling and the life of whalers, both at sea and ashore. And yet, I am sure that what I liked most at my first viewing was precisely what I now scoff at, especially Captain Ahab. I find it interesting to examine John Huston's inner motivation to make this movie in the light of his personality as depicted in the movie White Hunter, Black Heart.

Rating: 69 (down from 84)

The Mask of Dimitrios (1944)

Second viewing; first viewing with original English audio. Colorized copy (not recommended). Previously viewed on May 1, 1996.

A writer of detective novels hears from a police officer about the death of an international crook named Dimitrios, and starts investigating his life for a book. Another man is also looking for Dimitrios and approaches the writer with a proposition.

An interesting film with very enduring themes. Christopher Mulrooney has departed from this world but his well written film notes are still there for everyone to read, and he has written a good one about this movie. He mentions, as related films, The Third Man and Mr. Arkadin. There is also The Usual Suspects, more recently, which he perhaps did not know about, or did not care for. He has noticed that betrayal is an important theme. I, on the other hand, have a slightly different take on this film. In my view, it is about place and mobility. The superficial aspects of the plot involve traveling, but this is not the central point, or perhaps is just a reflection of the central point, which for me is one's place in the world. As it turns out, most people are quite content with their place, and lead stable lives. A few individuals, however, seem to have been born out of place, and will do anything to achieve the place where they feel they would belong. In the case of this movie, only two characters seem to fit that description: Dimitrios, of course, and Anna Bulic, the beautiful wife of a petty official. The inevitable conclusion one arrives at is that, while there will always be those ambitious individuals, the world would turn into a destructive chaos if the majority of men were like them. In fact, human nature seems to favor conformism, as a rule, and that is not so bad. Jorge Luis Borges, the writer, had a special fondness for this movie, and it is possible to draw a parallel with some of his writings, for instance, Theme of the Traitor and the Hero, and Three Versions of Judas, not to mention his early collection of stories Universal History of Infamy. 

Rating: 66 (up from 59)

24 Horas de Sonho (1941)

A woman constantly tries to kill herself due to her alleged bad luck in life. In one of those occasions, she befriends a cab driver who thinks he will bring her good luck. She wins a radio contest and decides to live "24 dream hours" and then have another go at suicide. She checks in at a posh hotel full of rich refugees from Europe. She takes the identity of one Baroness of the High Towers. A hotel employee passing up as a millionaire tries to seduce her, and she falls in love with him. There is a jewel robber at the hotel, with whom she gets entangled. A relative of the real Baroness comes to visit her and says he will bequeath her a fortune. The radio station tries to locate her and hire her as a permanent attraction.

A sort of screwball comedy from Brazil, with touches of black humor. The style is very simple-minded, but not altogether devoid of charm. The actors are mostly good, which is something I am not used to when it comes to Brazilian films. Mostly watchable as a historical curiosity.

Rating: 33

Patate (1964)

U.S. title: Friend of the Family

*possible mild spoilers below*

A freelance toy designer and engineer lives with his wife and unruly daughter. He has an old schoolmate whom he resents for his success, and for calling him Potato (it was not clear to me the rationale behind this nickname), and from whom he asks for a loan in order to start his toy factory. He finds out his daughter is having an affair with said schoolmate, who is married.

A mediocre farce which I watched mostly because I learned that it was a huge success when it came out. The center of the film, if there is one, may be the notion of someone whose elation at the possibility of revenge seems to overshadow his moral indignation. But the film's implication does not appear to be moralistic, but rather a relativization of the moral standards at the root of the conflict, and a denunciation of hypocrisy. It is not a badly made film, and there is enough farcical action to keep a viewer entertained, provided his expectations are low.

Rating: 38

Tap (1989)

Ex-convict and child prodigy in tap dancing tries to make an artistic comeback, but must resist the lure of his former partners in crime.

Exceptionally conventional drama which has the dubious glory of introducing the concept of taptronics -- electronically enhanced tap dancing to rock music. Anyway, the main dramatic point is insurance fraud, which I think was specifically chosen for being considered by many to be a lesser offense from a moral perspective. This is a film made by a white (Jewish?) man about blacks in situations which would be, from what I gather from news and fiction, not foreign to blacks in America. It doesn't play the race card explicitly, though -- perhaps because it was made by a white, perhaps Jewish, man. And it has an ending which is supposed to be upbeat, but leaves one wondering.

Rating: 34

La La Land (2016)

A guy and a girl leave their respective hometowns for Los Angeles, where they hope to make it as, respectively, a jazz pianist and a film actress. They meet and fall in love, and then their respective projects force them to part ways.

Mediocre post-modern musical, with a banal plot and passable songs. Its few novel ideas are mostly negative and didn't work for me; for instance, actors that can't sing are a feature instead of a bug. The initial dance sequence on the bridge, on the other hand, is interesting, at least as mise-en-scène. In a story which is partly about jazz, it is odd that not one song has the slightest jazzy trace to it. The film is imbued with the ethos of Capitalism, which is an integral part of the U.S., and, through cultural colonialism, most of the rest of the world as well. It doesn't really question this ethos: it is its ideology. And yet, it lacks the energy that could make it contagious.

Rating: 37

Les soeurs Brontë (1979)

English title: The Bronte Sisters.

Biographical drama on the lives of the titular characters -- Emily who wrote Wuthering Heights, Charlotte who wrote Jane Eyre, and Anne who wrote Agnes Grey -- and their brother Branwell. Living in a small English village, they dream of literary stardom.

Quite superficial as a biography, but one must credit this partly to the length having been drastically cut. It's not only that, though. The director's sensibility is crude at times, which goes well with other kinds of movies, but not with this one. The only noteworthy performance to my taste is Greggory's Branwell, but this may have little or nothing to do with a lack of skill by the female players, but rather with their characters' rough composition. The story is in itself potentially interesting, and the film has some moments where its bleak dramaticity is well explored. Most of all it is a curious thing to see the English through a Frenchman's eye.

Rating: 50

Sai da Frente (1952)

Second viewing; first viewed on April 21, 1992.

The owner of a transport truck is hired to move some furniture to another city. During the trip a series of comic incidents occur.

Enjoyable comedy, above the average Brazilian quality level in films. Abílio Pereira de Almeida, the co-author of the script who also directs, was a successful playwright who also left his mark in movies. His comicity is informed by an array of different styles, from social criticism to slapstick, and even a little bit of surrealism. The main actor would become enormously popular in this and in later films which he would go on to write and in some cases direct. His rural persona struck a cord with mass audiences in Brazil, but here it is somewhat in disaccord with the urban setting. All the same, his performance is amusing. For some reason I did not enjoy this film on my first viewing.

Rating: 52 (up from 30)

Hamlet (1969)

Based on the play by William Shakespeare, written between 1599 and 1602 and in turn based on a Danish legend, preserved by 13th-century chronicler Saxo Grammaticus in his Gesta Danorum.

The prince of Denmark suspects his uncle killed his (the prince's) father in order to snatch the throne and marry the queen.

Excellent adaptation, in everything the opposite of the also excellent one by Olivier. While Olivier's was replete with symbology and displayed a style of acting not unlike they would on a theater stage, here they opted for naturalism, both in acting and in filming, with great artistic success. Hamlet is arguably the most annoying character ever to have been conceived by a literary mind. I am sorry if this seems callous of me, but that is how I feel about him. And he is also amusing, strange as this may seem. I suspect, based on another film I saw, named Prince of Jutland, that this is entirely Shakespeare's doing, as the original character from the legend, as supposedly depicted in that movie, is the exact opposite of its Shakespearean incarnation. That original Amleth was determined and, if I correctly recall it, successful, everything that Hamlet was not.

Rating: 72

True Romance (1993)

Second viewing; first viewed on May 14, 1995.

Guy steals from his girl's pimp, and gets into deep trouble because of it.

The ultimate loser falls in love with a whore. That's a classic situation, dating back at least to Dostoevsky. In this instance, the interesting character is rather the guy's father, who is a vehicle for some funny notions about Sicilians and their sense of racial pride. As a part-Sicilian myself, I have to put in my two cents and say that, although I cannot vouch for the impossibility of such behavior and emotions by real-life Sicilians as depicted in this movie (namely, the guy gets very pissed off about the allegation that his female ancestors mixed with Sub-Saharan Africans), I find them silly. The fact that admixture may have occurred centuries ago does not detract from the fact that present-day Sicilians and Sub-Saharan Africans are very distinct races. Anyway, this is a very nerdy movie, or actually a stage play about movies disguising as a movie.

Rating: 50 (unchanged)

The Mummy (1932)

Second viewing; first viewed on October 27, 1991.

The mummy of a priest from ancient Egypt comes back to life and assumes a new identity. He becomes obsessed with a young woman whom he thinks is the reincarnation of his lover in his previous life.

I am still pondering whether the sheer absurdity of its plot is just out of stupidity or something else -- something akin to genius. I am not talking here about the film's premise, which is silly, of course, and which has had an enduring influence on popular culture. I am talking about the specific plot point that has a character find his reincarnated lover, and makes him go to the trouble of killing her so that she may be revived with an ancient spell. Really, this is too precious for words. Aside from script matters, the film as a whole is, to my judgment, exceedingly well made, and lets out no clue whatsoever as to the humorous potential of its plot in general or the point I raised in particular.

Rating: 57 (down from 70)

Fogo Morto (1976)

English title: The Last Plantation.

Based on the novel by José Lins do Rego, first published in 1943.

Set at a decaying sugarcane plantation in Northeastern Brazil, the film has three main characters: a saddle-maker who lives in the plantation, the plantation owner who drives it to ruin and is obsessed with religion, and a man with political ambitions.

A flawed film, probably due to a deficient screenplay. Still, the subject matter and the characters are interesting, and some parts of it are reasonably well filmed.

Rating: 40

Adieu au langage (2014)

English title: Goodbye to Language.

There is only a faintly discernible semblance of a plot, which involves a young woman, her husband, and a new man she takes as a lover. There is also a dog who wanders by river banks and groves. The dialogue is mostly a series of repetitive slogans and scholarly or literary quotations. Political theory and human feces are some of the subjects of discussion. Some social turmoil is vaguely suggested in some scenes. Natural landscapes are filmed with color distorting filters. A big ship is recurringly shown as it docks at a harbor. A pun with the movie's title is shown in intertitles. There is an apparent segmentation into two sections named "Nature" and "Metaphor".

There is really little that can be said about this film. It seems to be a series of rough ideas for a movie which are shown "as is" instead of being elaborated further. I suspect that this is part of a strategy intended to conceal the probable badness of a hypothetical finished movie with another kind of badness which, somehow, poses as artistic attitude.

Rating: 17

Forushande (2016)

English title: The Salesman.

A couple has to move from their apartment because the building starts to fall apart. After a suggestion by a colleague of the husband, they move to a new one. A disagreeable incident occurs in there which provokes a crisis in their marriage.

Here is a film trying to be smart and failing in almost all counts. Although by the end of it what it is trying to say becomes reasonably clear, the paths it takes to say it are often puzzling. The most puzzling point for me was the whole subplot about the stuff the previous tenant left locked in their apartment. It is given an enormous emphasis which contrasts with the little to no bearing it has on what I perceived to be the main events of the movie. Maybe there is something here which is too subtle for my coarse sensibility. Aside from that, I am afraid that the film conveys a worldview which I do not espouse, and perhaps do not even understand. I call it defeatist, for lack of a better word. I was going to say weak, but I would be wrong, because I can sympathize with weakness, but never with defeatism. Looking back, I have the impression that this criticism might apply to The Separation as well, but I suspect the narrative there was fluid enough to trick me into liking it.

Rating: 40

The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)

Third viewing; previous viewings were on March 24, 1990 and March 6, 1991.

A worker at a small flower shop is growing a carnivore plant, and the shop's owner decides to take advantage of the exotic plant in order to attract customers.

Nice little comedy, with original ideas and a general atmosphere of irreverence. Nevertheless, I feel it doesn't quite deserve the high rating I had bestowed upon it. Its overall look and comic style is somewhat TV-like, and the humor is at times a bit facile.

Rating: 67 (down from 85)

Saint-Tropez Blues (1961)

Young man invites young woman to go to French beach town Saint-Tropez during school vacation, and asks her to take her father's car for the trip. Along the route they pick up another young man, and during their stay in that town they meet many beautiful people. There is a problem though: he wants her to be his girlfriend, but she refuses. Another complicating factor is that she is a virgin.

Not too densely plotted, as has been said by many, but as a chronicle of a place and a time it isn't bad. The locations are terrific, and there are some nice songs too.

Rating: 51

Meu Destino É Pecar (1952)

Woman moves to a farm after marrying a man she doesn't love. She must deal with the advances of his lecherous brother, the hostility of his sister, and the coldness of his mother. Above all this hangs the shadow of his former wife, whose death is wrapped in a cloud of mystery.

Atrocious rip-off of Carolina Nabuco's A Sucessora. There are however some minor niceties such as its locations, a lovely song number, and a well-choreographed dance with African motifs. An earlier rip-off of  A Sucessora was Rebecca.

Rating: 12

Les patates (1969)

English title: Potatoes.

During World War II, in the Ardennes, which was part of the zone interdite (forbidden zone), people are experiencing hunger due to strict regulations concerning the transportation of food items across its borders. One man decides to try to smuggle some potatoes from outside and use them to grow a new crop.

Comedy which makes for an interesting history lesson, and an entertaining one, too. Even though there is death and the overhanging shadow of starvation, humor sets the tone, in a very down-to-earth manner which never feels forced or improper.

Rating: 60

Witch Hunt (1994)

In the 1950s, magic becomes a common practice in Hollywood. A crooked senator opposes it vehemently. A private detective who refuses to use it is hired by a starlet to spy on her unfaithful producer husband. The two story threads intersect when the latter character is murdered.

Apparently, this is a silly movie. They have taken the titular figure of speech and de-figured it, that is, played it to its literal meaning in the same historical context. Christopher Mulrooney points to a second metaphor, namely, digital visual effects, of which this film gives abundant display.

Rating: 32

Cronos (1993)

A 16th-century alchemist builds a device for prolonging life indefinitely. Four centuries later, it is franticaly searched for, and accidentally found by an antiques dealer, who applies it to himself, with ghastly consequences.

Science-fiction with no real grip on science. Very tedious as storytelling, but people seem to have liked it. The main actor is good, anyway.

Rating: 21

Eyes of Laura Mars (1978)

Second viewing. I do not know the date of my first viewing; I estimate it to be around 1982.

An artistic photographer has visions of murders which actually take place involving her models or associates. A police detective takes on the case and gets into a romantic relationship with her.

American giallo with superior production values. People who have complained about the ending probably do not get the rules of the genre, amongst which is a disdain for psychological plausibility. Another rule is that the plot must be moderately to extremely tedious. I thought this to be on the side of moderately.

Ratio: 44 (unchanged)

True Believer (1989)

A lawyer with a background as a civil rights militant now specializes in drug cases; he hires a young assistant who persuades him to take the case of an unjustly imprisoned Korean immigrant.

The main character exemplifies Millôr Fernandes's adage: "Never trust an idealist who profits from his ideal". He eventually comes to terms with his conscience, with the unexpected bonus of discovering that the case he took was not really a departure from his specialization (civil rights violations as a result of drug repression). Criminal drama with a liberal slant, done with a modicum of intelligence and very professionally.

Rating: 51

Gabbeh (1996)

Set in rural Iran, this is about a young woman who encounters successive obstacles to her marriage with a man she fancies.

This could perhaps have been a better film if more resources were applied to its production. The actors here clearly cannot act, most of them anyway, and the script has a somewhat disjointed structure, with poorly written dialogue. But there are some good ideas and the premise has some potential; its main asset is the lovely display of color mainly on women's clothes.

Rating: 48

The Punisher (1989)

A vigilante had been wiping out several members of the mafia, but now the police believe him to be dead. When the head of that criminal organization returns to the U.S.A., there is speculation over the biological status and possible new actions by the aforementioned independent executioner. A headstrong policeman has his own ideas about the vigilante's identity, and has pursued a solitary investigation to find and apprehend him.

Mildly rewarding as a testosterone-fueled thriller, yet severely lacking in the dramatic department-- the subplot about the motivations of the cop for chasing the Punisher is borderline retarded. What is most problematic about this film, and also with the Batman films, is that they are based on a concept -- that of individual vigilantism -- which is, to the best of my knowledge, absent from reality.

Rating: 33

O Despertar da Besta (1969)

Alternate title: O Ritual dos Sádicos.

English title: Awakening of the Beast.

One or more gangs are kidnapping young women and administering drugs to them in order to make them perform sex acts for perverted men. Concurrently, an assembly of intellectuals debate the effects of drugs.

A blend of Reefer Madness and Corman's The Trip, this fits neatly in the exploitation category, wherein a theme is exploited for its shock appeal rather than being legitimately explored into its causes and consequences. Well, anyway, it was voted one of the best 100 Brazilian films, go figure. And, God knows, it might actually be, Brazilian films being so bad in their majority... This film marks a contrast with the earlier work of its diretor. The taste for shocking imagery is still present, and here there is the extra bonus of some impressive color cinematography in the hallucination sequences, but the raw power of those earlier works, which, perhaps unwittingly, dissected the very core of Brazilian machismo ideology, is gone, and the Coffin Joe character is replaced by its maker-as-character, now a celebrity of sorts.

Rating: 31

One Crazy Summer (1986)

Two high-school graduates go on a summer trip to an American island town, where they meet some weird friends of one of them. They also meet a teenage rock singer on the run from her former employers. One of the visiting boys feels attracted towards her, and tries to help her over troubles she's having with her father's mortgage.

Amiably wacky comedy, which is funnier on its first half and then gets somewhat draggy, though not as much as to become unpleasant.

Rating: 55

O Rei do Baralho (1973)

Nearly plotless. The titular "king of the card pack" is a gambler who has a stunningly sexy girlfriend.

Bressane's films (with very few exceptions) follow a certain pattern which has become a veritable formula. His doctrinary master is Brecht, and his fellow cinematic disciples are Bresson, Straub, and Godard. He seems to be very fond of film theory, and also of classical culture. In his early career, he displayed a certain attraction to the lower classes of society. Later on his career his films would abandon this fictive milieu in favor of a decidedly bourgeois one. I find most of his films awful, with few exceptions and only one which I can say I really like (Killed the Family and Went to the Movies). O Rei do Baralho is not one of his worse ones, probably because the director managed to assemble an interesting cast.

Rating: 31

Araya (1959)

Documentary about a semi-desertic region in the Venezuelan coast and the community of its inhabitants. The local economy is based on salt mining and fishing.

This is a splendid documentary, aesthetically pleasing in a visual sense, informative about its subject, and with a poetic voice narration.

Postcards from the Edge (1990)

Second viewing; first viewing with original audio; previously viewed dubbed on September 4, 2000.

After having a drug overdose, actress goes into rehab. She lands a part on a cheap action movie, but the insurance company requires that she lives with someone "responsible", which, in her case, means her mother, with whom she has a conflictuous relationship.

This is a very good movie, which I apparently didn't give its fair due when I first watched it. It's mostly brilliant sequence after brilliant sequence, even though the storyline and situations per se are not strictly original. The acting is good, especially MacLaine, which does a terrific job as the slightly self-centered mother. The film conveys well a relationship which, although far from healthy, has genuine love in it. The MacLaine character suffers from the same psychological illness which was the theme of the novel Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov.

Rating: 71 (up from 67)

In the Army Now (1994)

Two losers join the army as water purification agents, expecting an easy time and a generous monetary compensation. They are sent to Chad in the campaign against the Libyan invaders.

Poor comedy which offers little or no humorous rewards, but has reasonable production values and an overall not too unpleasant story flow. Christopher Mulrooney called it a "splendid satire of the New Army", and he possibly knew better than me.

Rating: 31

Sleeping Beauty (1959)

It is impossible to ascertain whether I have viewed this film on an earlier date. If I have, it was very long ago, in the seventies, or maybe even in the sixties.

Based on a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, published in 1812, and on its earlier version by Charles Perrault, published in 1697. According to Wikipedia, "This in turn was based on "Sun, Moon, and Talia" by Italian poet Giambattista Basile (published posthumously in 1634), which was in turn based on one or more folk tales. The earliest known version of the story is Perceforest, composed between 1330 and 1344 and first printed in 1528."

A resentful woman endowed with magical powers casts a deadly spell on a beautiful princess, which, after the intervention of a good fairy, will entail that the princess enters a dormant state on her sixteenth birthday, which can only be interrupted by an adequate kiss.

Graphically, this is an impressive accomplishment, superbly merging modern concepts with traditional ones. The weaker part is the script, which shows little flair for invention and has magic as an ubiquitous resource to solve all dramatic problems.

Rating: 64

Il gattopardo (1963)

Second viewing; first viewed between 1983 and 1986.

English title: The Leopard.

During the Italian unification wars in the nineteenth century, a Sicilian nobleman and his nephew devise strategies for preserving what they can of their position and way of life.

It's beautiful to look at, and at times provides a good glimpse at a small town and its little people during a period of turmoil. The character of Tancredi has little or no psychological consistency and exists chiefly to utter the famous sentence and lay out the basic thesis of the film. If you enjoy very extended sequences of balls, dinners, masses, etc., and very little in the way of plot, then this film is your very thing.

Rating: 65 (down from 66)

The World According to Garp (1982)

First decent viewing; previous viewing in 1983 was experienced without understanding much of the dialogue.

The life of Garp, an individual who was conceived with the help of an unconscious soldier, and raised by Garp's mother. He grows up to be a novelist, but is overshadowed by his mother, who is an instant success with her memoir. He marries and has children, while his mother founds a sort of refuge for abused individuals.

There is an expression in Portuguese for which I found no equivalent in English: "crônica de costumes", whose literal translation would be "customs chronicle". Maybe this film fits in that category. Some could argue against that, saying that this is a social chronicle, and no less. Well, whatever. To be extremely frank, I wondered while watching it what fun was to be found in the contemplation of these characters' lives. But, as usual, I reprimanded myself, pondering that it had an extremely well-structured and economic screenplay, that the impeccable mise-en-scène was especially visible in sequences like the one where Garp lets his manuscript's leaves get scattered about, and that the casting choices were a work of genius. The multi-incident narrative never quite conceals that the core of the film is the somewhat sad story of a fatherless man who strives to be the best father in the world.

Rating: 55

Ice Age (2002)

In the beginning of an ice age, a sloth joins a mammoth and a sabertooth tiger in the task of returning a stray infant to its father, who has left for warmer climates with his herd. The sabertooth has a hidden agenda, though.

Very poor in plot, unremarkable in graphics, and with gags which will cause a mild chuckle at best, this film's success is thus perfectly explainable.

Rating: 32

A Madona de Cedro (1994) (TV miniseries)

Based on the novel by Antônio Callado, first published in 1957.

Delfino, a modest sculptor living in the Brazilian historical city of Congonhas, receives the unexpected visit of Maneco, a childhood friend who has been living in Rio de Janeiro. Maneco works for an art thief and tries to coax Delfino into stealing the statue of the Virgin Mary from the local church.

The nineties were probably the prime of Brazilian TV channel Globo, whose average production is of mediocre quality, and has been decaying steadily into unwatchability since that decade. They made a few watchable miniseries, for example Agosto, and this one. It has a nice plot, and overall decent acting, the highlights of which are Paulo José as a blend of the hunchback of Notre Dame and the Phantom of the Opera, and Humberto Martins as Maneco.

Rating: 56

Foxcatcher (2014)

A weird billionaire offers sponsorship to a wrestling champion and his brother, who is also a wrestler. The offer is accepted by the former only, and he moves to the billionaire's estate. The relationship between the two becomes weirdly affectionate, but things go sour. Then the brother decides to come too.

I watched this at the end of last year, but could not bring myself to write these notes. It is an interesting movie, but abides by the current trend of lack of intelligence in certain scripting choices. Certain real-life events were omitted which would considerably clarify the movie. For example, before the fatal event near the end it is known that the real Dave Schultz was leaving Du Pont's team. This would provide a reasonable clue to the latter's feelings and thus to his gruesome act, and yet that fact was omitted in the film. Is it because the filmmaker thought insane people need no justification for their acts? If so, it's ridiculous. There is also the real-life accident which injured Du Pont in his youth, and which gets no mention in the movie. Perhaps it would bring light to some issues, but, again, omitted. Perhaps they were afraid that it would imply that every person with Du Pont's physical history would be prone to his personality and behavior. It seems nowadays everyone is afraid of being offensive, and as a result nothing but anodynous stuff gets said or done.

Rating: 60