DVD
REVIEW: FUNNY GAMES
06/08/08
SYNOPSIS: Ann and
George (Naomi Watts and Tim Roth) take their son for what
they believe to be relaxing vacation in a quiet country
home, but soon find themselves in mortal danger as a pair of
preppy strangers knock on the door and immediately take the
family hostage. As the family struggles to stay alive, the
sadistic visitors subject their prisoners to a series of
unimaginable terrors over the course of one blood-curdling
night.
REVIEW: “You bet that you’ll be alive tomorrow at
9:00, and we bet that you be dead. OK? Attractive bet coming
from a couple killers who has you hostage in your house,
isn’t it? Michael Hanake’s remake is as good as the first
one, Funny Games has a terrifying realism that let the
audience stunned and frightened without the overusing of
graphic gore. It is just Smart. The plot of the movie is a
simple one, but the way Hanake shows it to us is just great:
the setting, characters, situations, and dialogue are
incredibly well thought to the minimum detailed that they
combined to make a breathtaking thriller. It makes the
audience feel the tension and horror the Ferber family goes
through, but at the same time, it makes us feel as Paul and
Peter’s crime partners, specially when Paul brakes the
fourth wall and address the audience. It is the way these
two characters behave that makes the audience asking
themselves: what are they going to do next?, and attract us
to be mere spectators in these unscrupulous games, without
feeling a sympathy for the Ferbers. The way the actors
performed also contributes to built this asphyxiating
atmosphere that it is hard to resist for any horror fan. Tim
Roth, Naomi Watts, and Devon Gearhart did and outstanding
job portraying a regular high class family, none of them
with special characteristics or background that would allow
them to foresee or overcome a situation like the one
presented to them, their actions and gestures seems as real
that it does not feel like a movie, but none of these
performances are compared with Michael Pitts’s. His
representation of Paul is just fantastic, he perfectly
understood and felt that character a way that it frighten
the audience, but at the same time, charmed them with his
way charismatic politeness.
The movie makes a great critic to Hollywood’s overuse
structure and graphical brutality used in this genre. When
Mr. Ferber asked Paul for the reason of his action his
response attacks all the clichés we are used to in these
kind of movies like the killer being a drug addict, or
mentally unstable, and the classic abused childhood
background. It is that grade of uncertainty that makes the
audience experience torture and tension without seen an
extreme bloody scene, to leave them in the same place as the
beginning, but a little more afraid everything seems so
possible, which I personally found amusing. The resolution
although is not as surprising it is well managed for the
director to keep the audience shock. The downside of the
movie, is one of the last scene, which I called the remote
control scene, although the director’s proposed is cleared,
I think it would have been better omitting the whole
sequence since it could be confusing. Overall the movie will
managed to entertain and torture you in the same way as Saw
and Hostel without the bone braking, or gallons of blood.
Funny Games is one of those movies that will stay in your
mind for a while implanting a sense of mistrust that will
make you see the world around you in another way
Review
By Milo
milo@smartcine.com
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VIDEO:
16x9 Widescreen 2.40
1:33.1 Full Screen
AUDIO:
English,
Spanish and French
5.1 (Dolby Digital).
Subtitles - English Spanish - Optional
SPECIAL FEATURES: The
DVD cover is attracted to the eye, I must admit that I
watched this movie just for the cover, it just hooked me,
but special feature wise disappoints, since it does not have
any. My personal opinion I think it is better this way since
I rather have no special feature than the same boring
features all other movies have like the making of or all
that stuff that you never see. I guess the only featured is
that it includes both Widescreen and full screen formats.
RATING BREAK DOWN:
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