Probably one of the most anti-climatic cinematic murder/death/kills in recent years that I've seen, yet simultaneously realistic and haunting. I mean, really: what could you do to stay alive if your hands were tied while gagged at the same time when thrown into a lake/estuary? Naomi Watts, Tim Roth, Michael Pitt and Brady Corbett (effectively creepy from the moment they appear outside the door) all give a disturbing, unsettling, realistic and I must admit, a very entertaining hour and forty-seven minutes of a performance that absolutely goes nowhere (as if it were a slice of violence rather than life), providing the viewer with a ridiculous hope-deficit. I never heard of the original film when this remake came out and knowing that it was made exactly like Gus Van Sandt's 1998 "Psycho" remake, I have no desire to see it, either. The film felt somewhat like a foreign film in the way it was photographed and the opening titles. But that was good that the director stuck to his guns because if it were tailored for an American audience, the movie would of taken a turn for the implausible worst by the middle of the film. Test audiences would be offended by the story's outcome, so the filmmakers would scurry and slap on a ridiculous new cookie-cutter-type conclusion beginning where Tim Roth pleads to Naomi Watts forgive him. From there if it were Americanized, the perps and Tim would probably be in on a conspiracy in where the son is killed and then they kill Naomi and then split the insurance money that they collect three ways and then meet up in Bermuda or something ridiculous like that. The usual greed conspiracies that are standard in American film formulas these days, which is very possible/probable. Somewhere in the last fifteen years, audiences seem to have dominated a film's destiny and it wouldn't surprise me if European audiences were not as judging or fickle. Director Michel Haneke dismisses the fact that a grim remake of this film wouldn't necessarily appeal to American audiences, and being mindful of that, he cleverly casts a siren like Watts; a versatile and entertaining character-actor like Roth; an unknown who is neither a ham or annoying child actor to play their son; a sinister creep like Michael Pitt and his sidekick Brady Corbett who as an ensemble, propel the film from beginning to end. What's more, is that the "kids" kill these affluent families one after another, and we see their first victims from a distance deep behind their front gate with Pitt and Corbett in tow, mirroring as to what Watts, Roth and son will be within an hour or so from that point. And when Watts rendezvous with her friend after some time from her abduction, as the viewer you have an idea that the character will return again in the film's duration. When I saw her at the end, I was waiting for Watts to miraculously recover from being tossed aside like an infinitesimal piece of trash from the boat but didn't. Instead, the film ends with almost how it begins. Eggs, anyone? It is not to say that I didn't find the film without flaws: I didn't like how Michael Pitt broke the fourth wall in the middle of the film (and for me, I re-entered reality at this point and slowly began to doubt the film). Also- what were Pitt and Corbett's motives? Is it true what they said earlier about robbing rich people and then murdering them? And did they ever sleep since Watts and her family were the second set of victims (for all we know as an audience) in their blood-fest marathon? And why is there the cliché that all rich people like to listen to classical music (as another poster cites as well)? Still, even though the film offered little redeeming (if any) qualities to it, it is still haunting to me let alone watching repeat viewings. Not necessarily a movie I would buy as soon as it were released onto DVD, yet I'm secretly curious to watch the special features.
Review of Funny Games
