18-11-2004
What a boring piece of crap. Honestly, this post isn't strictly scatological. Believe me, the info I'm about to gratefully present to you is well worth any invested time.I rented The Thing Red Line, directed by some Kubrick-wannabe wash up who earned enough respect in his underachieving career to merit cameo appearances of stars like Woody Harrelson and Nick Nolte in his pet projects (and I do mean -DOGS-). Christ, I bet he wishes he died before he saw this little ship set sail -- and SINK, like John Travolta in a swimming pool after three Travolta-sized servings of Canole.
Normally I'd pin the loss on worthless Travolta, who took a long enough break from snorting Penne to also cameo in the director's (hopefully) last film.
But I can't, as much as I'd like to.
That blame is directed at poor Elias Koteas --yes, Casey Jones himself-- who was unwittingly picked to carry the film's emotional load-- and he just doesn't have the Starpower to do that. We get to see him in various 'key' scenes staring off into space while an over-acting (read: badly acting) Nick Nolte goes on little unrealistic rants about trivial, uninteresting things. Anna Nicole Smith lecturing on the pros and cons of UNIX-based systems would be about as believable. Just shut the hell up, Nolte. Your career was Streisanded by the Prince of Tides. It's over.
So Koteas carries the film... and drops it... many times. But what would we expect from an actor whose bread and butter are supporting roles in cartoon-to-live action films?
This isn't a George Clooney, or a Nick Nolte, or a Sean Penn film. It's an Elias Koteas (sigh) vehicle.
Another mistake from the foolish director.
I should also point out that the film has no point.
If a 'key' sequence near the beginning of the film were to switch places with a 'key' sequence near the end, the film would play the same and appear to have no continuity errors. Not a good sign.
In the plus column, we get to see Woody Harrelson blow his ass off. That's how that character dies. He blows his ass off.
But a flawless pearl doesn't look so good impacted in a shit ball, which is about what this film amounts to.
Pros
--
Woody gets ass blown off.
Cons
--
All scenes that do not include Woody getting ass blown off.
Hmmm.. I guess it's only fair to disclose that I pulled the film about 20 minutes before it ended -- I couldn't take any more.
Well, that's that. Oh -- you probably shouldn't read that part about Woody getting his ass blown off, if you haven't seen the film -- there's a spoiler there.
