Monday, October 15, 2007

"Intermission" (2003) - Movie Review

Call me biased but I am totally psyched for a thick English or Irish accent. And it works particularly hysterical when it is dark comedy. And for umpteenth time, there are cross over layer of stories connected not necessarily in convinced fashion but for the heck of it some times and most of the times for fun. Director John Crowley’s “Intermission” is sickeningly funny and has a little bit soul of every genre for that matter.

With the setting of Dublin, Ireland, the film involves numerous characters as it is needed for a multi connected story of different day to day ordinary people mixed up with comedy of errors. And when I say me being biased about the accent, take this for example. Detective Jerry Lynch’s (Colm Meaney) car is toasted and he looks at it gravely. One of the colleagues comes and says, “Condolences, Man”. It is good enough for your chuckles but the next one is the banger when another colleague comes by and says, “Seriously” in that tight powered ridiculously sarcastic yet serious accent, you break out laughing. And if you think, explaining this spoiled the fun then you are wrong. You might enjoy it more now expecting it than when I did not expect it. Might sound untrue and it is for many movies, but not this one.

The film is filled in with constant interval of these moments of pure delivery of dialogue than anything else. But Crowley’s script does not primarily wander in the Tarantinized world (as Ebert might say) of insane dependency on style and cuts. It tries to make sense in the migration of screenplay from one sequence to another. Like the film “Go” or “11:14”, it relies heavily on music, movements and unexpected behavior of its characters, but they do not strain of being smart and stylistic than being them. The funny twists are funny ones and the serious twists are even funnier.

While cracking us up, the film takes a side step and gives some sweet simplicities of life as any movie of this genre would not attempt to. It does not hesitate to weigh down the macho factor to have some earthly substance as well. May be it does not offer the best of the drama but the necessary drama for a film concentrating on dry comic. And to see Colin Farrell and Cicilian Murphy eager and enthusiastic to be underplayed and bold, it is fun to watch.

True that there is not much to write in depth about the characters and while it surfaces on being honest about some of these people, it might not affect. I am kind of put in an area not so good in reviewing spot when I spent more time laughing and missing some of the materials too. Analyzing characters in this movie might be to steal even some of the remote soul in eccentricity left in this film. While I did hesitate to leak out a funny moment, because it is filled in abundance with it, I would not want to spill the beans on handsome amount of character traits left in the film.

Seeing the movie, the manner, tone and colour of it has developed and formed in to a genre than a trend. While Tarantino developed his authenticity in it, there are few directors who took the inspiration and created their own territory of making. The cult status of “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” with minimal stars by Guy Ritchie, Troy Duffy’s “Boondock Saints”, again Guy Ritchie’s “Snatch” are some of those elements of inspiring dry but interesting Tarantinized genre. Thinking about it, one will be surprised how come no one ever was able to bring a path breaking form of movie making as that of Tarantino after him. I would not deny the existence of bold Robert Rodriguez’s pleasure of his colourful and enthusiastic movie making (even though I did not enjoy “Sin City” and “Planet Terror”, there is a mark of originality and novelty in the screen). There are directors who have their own take but they mainly depend on DVD distribution than on main stream release. Is it because of the Hollywood mess ups in identifying the right talents? Why do big giant producers blindly venture into a project with only reliance on the frame than substance like “Crank” or “Smokin’ Aces”? I hope people like Crowley are recognized and mainly encouraged for inventing a genre like what Tarantino did.

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