The Big Bang (2010)
5/10
A messy attempt at something interesting.
26 August 2011
Antonio Banderas stars as Ned, a detective who has just acquired a new client. A giant man with anger issues who is looking for the love of his life, a sexy woman whom he's never met. He was stuck in prison and she kept his hope alive by writing to him. Now he's out and is looking for her. Along the way Ned finds himself being followed and dead bodies turn up everywhere. Is there more to this case than meets the eye?

The short answer is no. The Big Bang is a film that promises much and delivers little. I'm a lover of detective flicks. Film Noir is one of my favourite genres and this flick looked promising and at the very least visually pleasing. It succeeded on the latter portion, since the film is drenched is vibrant colours that wouldn't exist in a normal realistic setting. Each room has it's own colour scheme, we go from green to yellow to red to purple. All the colours of the spectrum are portrayed here and it's enough to grab your sense. The story on the other hand is enough to bore you out of the experience.

We meet Ned in an interrogation room where three cops are questioning him about the events that lead up to his current situation. So a good portion of the film is told in flashbacks from Ned's perspective. His character is the classic film noir detective, minus the outfit. The character himself has zero relate-ability and is not interesting enough for a lead. The case itself isn't interesting enough. We are on the quest to find a woman and at some points during the film, we wonder is she even exists. A subplot to the story is Chris Elliott's character, a billionaire reclusive who is looking for the God Particle. It's very science fiction in parts and his quest for such a thing leads the the inevitable climax, which is right out of the film 2012.

The sad part is that the film is not interesting enough to keep your attention. It might be pretty to look at, but for a film that relies so heavily on the mystery of the film noir genre, it fails to attract attention. There are parts of the film that I don't get because I think I started to day dream while it was on. I got the gist of it and the answers behind the questions regarding the missing girl are so uneventful that you wish you never began. The film comes off a w wacky out of this world depiction of the genre, but it really isn't. The colours and one or two scenes are unique, but the film as a whole is just a messy script with mediocre direction. As stated before, the cinematography is the highlight.

I can't recommend this flick, it's not out there enough to please Lynch fans and it's not Film noir enough to please Chinatown fans. Instead it feels like a missed opportunity. A cool credit sequence might get you excited, but the lack of direction in the story will leave you deflated.
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