I know films are supposed to evoke emotions, make you sad, scared, angry, but it's always, however contradictory it may seem, in a good way! I don't need one to actually stress me out, I've got enough of that already. Credit where credit is due, this IS on purpose. The Safdie brothers are meticulous in their process of letting the audience feel the stress their lead character is under, and I can appreciate and applaud that. It just wasn't for me. My heart was pounding, non stop, but it wasn't in a good way. It wasn't in the way you normally get it with great thrillers, or even horror films. It wasn't exciting as much as it was unpleasant, I wasn't on the edge of my seat as much as I was on the verge of popping a Valium.
As for the plot, there hardly isn't any to speak of, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, because it leaves space for everything else. What it is about is a guy with debt and gambling issues, living through probably the worst couple of days of his life, and there is hardly a single second of quiet and reprieve from the mayhem. Characters are constantly shouting, fighting, cursing each other out, I wouldn't be surprised to read in the trivia section, that there isn't a single moment in the entire film where at least 2 characters aren't speaking at the same time. As such, there is hardly time to care about any of the characters, a lot of the time I found it hard to even care what happed to Howard, despite the brilliant portrayal by Sandler.
The Safdie brothers have made the kind of film they wanted to make, I'm sure of that, and the craft is nothing short of astonishing. It's just that, in making the film they wanted to make, they made an extremely uncomfortable one. I was stressed, I was depressed and not in any good way!
As for the plot, there hardly isn't any to speak of, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, because it leaves space for everything else. What it is about is a guy with debt and gambling issues, living through probably the worst couple of days of his life, and there is hardly a single second of quiet and reprieve from the mayhem. Characters are constantly shouting, fighting, cursing each other out, I wouldn't be surprised to read in the trivia section, that there isn't a single moment in the entire film where at least 2 characters aren't speaking at the same time. As such, there is hardly time to care about any of the characters, a lot of the time I found it hard to even care what happed to Howard, despite the brilliant portrayal by Sandler.
The Safdie brothers have made the kind of film they wanted to make, I'm sure of that, and the craft is nothing short of astonishing. It's just that, in making the film they wanted to make, they made an extremely uncomfortable one. I was stressed, I was depressed and not in any good way!
