Following
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Movie Reviews of Following
Movie Review: Wehomebrew
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie is written from the same director that gave all of us the unbelievable movie "Memento", a cult legend in itself. If you enjoyed Memento, stop reading this review and go buy yourself a copy of this movie 'ASAP'. Now that is said, here's the review. This movie is so smart and sophisticated! It's a shifty, paranoid, devilishly clever, sleek, taut, exquisite, startling, with an eerie intensity, that will leave you wanting more. These are what movies are supposed to be like. director Christopher Nolan shows the world how movies are supposed to be directed. You will have to put your thinking hats on for this one though, it's not for your mainstream movie watchers. This one will need to be watched several times to put the whole story together (Like Memento, the more you watch this, the more you will see the whole picture). Just remember after watching this movie "Your Never Alone". Following is a wickedly clever story of how a young man's obsession with following people leads him into a dark underworld. Bill, the unlikely hero, is a marginalized but intriguing everyday man who follows strangers at random on the street. When Cobb, a man Bill has been following, catches him in the act, Bill is drawn into Cobb's world of breaking into flats and prying into the personal lives of their victims. In Cobb, Bill finds a strange companion (Part mentor, part confessor and part evil twin). With an ingenious structure that involves flash forwards and doubling back, the film tests our knowledge and understanding just as the protagionist is being duped into an elaborate triple-cross (And what a monster triple-cross it is, it will leave your jaw hitting the ground with shock). This movie is intriguing.... It sucks you into its conceit with an ease, you won't be able to leave your T.V. until the very end, and then you will already want to watch it again. I only wish I could give this movie more stars than 5. Honestly, I think this is every bit as good as Memento, if not better.
This movie won :
* Winner Tiger Award @ The International Film Festival of Rotterdam
* Official Selection @ Toronto International Film Festival
* Official Selection @ San Francisco International Film Festival
It's special features include :
* Commentary by Director Christopher Nolan
* Second angle showing Director's shooting script
* Ability to restructure The Story Chronologically (This is way cool! How many movies do you know of that you can piece back together to see it in the chronologically order, instead of the flash forwards and doubling back effect). I highly recommend you use this feature after you watch the movie the original way with flash forwards and doubling effects!
* Digitally Mastered Audio & Video
* Audio: English 2.0 Dolby Stereo
* Subtitles: English, Spanish
* Theatrical Trailers
* Interactive Motion Menus
* Scene Selections
* Cast & Crew Biographies
I didn't mention this above, but this is Director's Christopher Nolan's first movie. Many viewers have watched Memento and praised it. As I agree with Memento viewers (Awesome Movie), 'Following' is a stunning, beautiful, suspenseful, downright ingenius of a movie! Please I'm begging you to buy this movie and watch it over and over again! Then you will understand why I enjoyed this movie so much. Don't say I didn't warn you how good it is.
Movie Review: You'll Need To Pay Attention With This One. It's Worth It.
Summary: 5 Stars
Following is the one of the cleverest, smartest, toughest psychological thrillers since...well...since Memento. Bill (Jeremy Theobald) is an unsuccessful wannabe writer. "I've been on my own for a while," he tells an older man at the beginning of the movie, "and getting kind of lonely...and bored...nothing to do all day. And that's when I started shadowing." Bill will pick out a person and spend the day secretly following them around, seeing what they do and who they meet, what their lives are like. Fate, or something more sinister, takes a hand when he follows Cobb (Alex Haw) one day...and Cobb confronts him in a cafe. Cobb is about Bill's age, but he's smart and assured. And a thief. He breaks into people's flats and takes things, not just for the money. He convinces Bill, almost in a seduction, to follow him around while he does this. Bill is torn between fascination and unease, and fascination wins. Cobb explains to him that "interrupting someone's life is what it's all about. Making them see all the things they take for granted." One night Bill meets an attractive blond (Lucy Russell) in a nightclub owned by her boyfriend, an older, ruthless criminal who deals in drugs and pornography. As their relationship develops, so does his relationship with Cobb. Cobb may not be the best guy around to trust. Maybe not Lucy, either.
You might think the movie is a linear neo-noir until you realize that while some scenes are not in a linear context, they still provide clues to what's happening to Bill. In one scene he may be scruffy. In another scene more-or-less well groomed. He may have a bruise the size of a fist on his cheek with a white rubber glove stuffed in his mouth; in the next scene, no bruise, no glove. The scenes aren't in any chronological context, but they aren't random, either. They're great as a way to cleverly capture your attention and to make you suspicious of what you're seeing and of what seems to be happening. We realize Bill's story is a lot more complicated than we think, and that Bill's version doesn't seem likely to be the only version. The conclusion makes absolute sense when we look back at everything, and it is totally unexpected.
Nolan, who made Memento three years after Following, is a master at cleverly moving around pieces of a puzzle. If Memento was close to being a masterpiece of indirection, Following shows Memento wasn't a lucky one-shot. The movie, according to IMDb, was shot on a budget of about $6,000 on weekends. The cast and crew were friends, coworkers and relatives. It doesn't look like the work of amateurs at all. This is a fully professional film. The cast, incidentally, does an outstanding job. Only Russell seems to have gone on to a professional acting career. Theobald captures the feel of a person who doesn't just follow, but is essentially a follower. And Alex Haw as Cobb brings to the role all the competent, assured superciliousness of a young Rupert Everett, and that's intended as a compliment.
The movie was shot full frame and the DVD transfer looks just fine. There are a number of extras that fans of Nolan will most likely find of interest, including a Nolan commentary. For people who can't stand puzzles, one of the extras includes the ability to restructure the story chronologically.
Movie Review: Following
Summary: 5 Stars
Christopher Nolan is now one of the biggest filmmakers on the planet, but his first studio feature was a modest remake of the Norwegian film Insomnia. In any other filmmaker's hands this project could have easily turned into a cliched cop drama, but Nolan made it into an intense character study that landed him the job of rebooting Batman. Out of seven feature films in his career, Nolan has five that appear in IMDb's Top 250 as voted on by average viewers who visit the site. Of his seven feature-length films, Nolan's auspicious debut, Following, is his most overlooked.
Filmed over the course of a year due to cast and crew working other full-time jobs and funded on Nolan's own dime for a mere $6,000, Following is about a writer (a young man who remains nameless) that follows strangers around to conduct research for his writing but also to cure his feelings of loneliness. Although the writer has established strict rules for following people, he finds himself thrust into a world of crime when he breaks those rules by following a man named Cobb (a name that will appear in a future Nolan movie).
Throughout Following you'll find motifs that appear throughout Nolan's future films. One of the first things you'll notice is the non-linear plot line that pops up again in movies like Batman Begins, The Prestige, and Inception. Here the pieces might not seem to fit together as well as they do in Nolan's future films, but they add to the mystery of figuring out exactly what's going on throughout the movie. As you watch this film you're able to piece things together, but at first the effect of this technique can seem a little more jarring than in the films made after Nolan perfected his craft.
The central themes apparent throughout Nolan's work, along with his unique brand of story telling, are also present in Following. The story of a man following strangers works brilliantly as a means of exploring the kind of moral ambiguity that leads down dark paths and eventually spirals out of control; the kind of ambiguity that Nolan would go on to explore in films like The Dark Knight and The Prestige. Nolan stages Following as a neo-noir film, noir being a difficult style of filmmaking that he appears to be more than adept at handling.
If you're a fan of Christopher Nolan's brand of filmmaking I suggest you give this a try. Unfortunately when I say that it's overlooked I mean that the DVD is currently out of print, although you can still buy used copies on Amazon. However, if you have Netflix feel free to add it to your queue or check it out on Instant. Much like Kevin Smith's Clerks or Darren Aronofsky's Pi this film is very gritty, but the style is still Nolan's own. Of course, if you're like me you're more about substance than style. Check it out and let us know what you think!
Movie Review: Pulp thriller for ever
Summary: 5 Stars
Black and white, white and black, which way does it go, if it goes one way rather than the other? The follower is followed by the one he is following who follows him. The best way to follow someone is to make him follow you. Of course you must have an objective and what is the objective in this film? Clear cut and criminal: to get rid of your girl friend and at the same time to keep the money stolen by the one who was following you and whom you were following in the safe of the bar landlord who was actually ordering the killing of the girl who was no longer a friend, but just a passing entertainment waiting for the end of the story, her death. And what a pleasure to let the one who was following you believe he was following you and even selecting you when in fact you were following him five paces ahead and selecting him as the one who was going to carry your crime to prison. Sorry folks the death penalty has been made illegal in England for so long we don't even remember how it was working in those old days when convicted criminals who might have been innocent were dropped through a trap in the rosy morning of their last day (singular please: no repeat in that kind of show, no rehearsal and no première, just one chance to become famous for at least one day on the media). The film is slightly difficult to follow because the various moments of the story are not in chronological order, Pulp Fiction forever.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID
Movie Review: Original and Compelling
Summary: 5 Stars
Christopher Nolan puts Hollywood to shame with this no-budget film. Proving that good scripts, good directors and good actors are the key ingredients that constitute good movies, not swollen budgets, big "stars" or special effects Nolan has created a very compelling film indeed. Although it's a no budget affair, it sure doesn't feel like it. The B&W treatment feels like a natural complement to the gritty story and turns a potential limitation into an asset- it actually has a real artistic visual style. The performances are first rate as well, but what really floats this movie is the terrific script that will draw you in and keep you in suspense right up until the last frame. Then you'll want to see it again immediately. How many movies do you have that reaction to? The non-chronological narrative is dealt with masterfully and gives an already intriguing story a further dimension. An added bonus is Nolan's astute commentary and the alternate angle view of the shooting script, both wonderful resources for the aspiring filmmaker but fascinating for the rest of us too.I saw this film accidentally because I grabbed the box too hastily from the video store, but boy am I glad I did!
Highly recommended.