Following
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Movie Reviews of Following
Movie Review: Poor man's Memento
Summary: 3 Stars
Year 2000 saw the suspense thriller MEMENTO starring Guy Pearce, wherein the uniqueness of the script resides in the fact that the plot unfolds from the end and proceeds backwards. FOLLOWING has somewhat of that same flavor, though not so engagingly or cleverly done.In this film, Jeremy Theobald plays Bill, a young Londoner addicted to following people - not with any malicious intent, but just out of curiosity. After a period of initial confusion for which the viewer might be excused, it becomes apparent that scenes from three timelines are being depicted. There's the present, in which Bill is telling an interviewer (lawyer, psychologist, police official ?) the genesis of his current situation, beginning with his practice of following strangers. There's the relatively distant past, in which Bill is confronted by one of his quarry, Cobb (Alex Haw), a sartorially elegant house burglar, who befriends Bill and includes him on his capers. Finally, the relatively recent past, in which Bill is dating The Blond (Lucy Russell), one of the pair's victims that isn't what she appears to be. The first clue I had that three timelines were running intermixed was Bill's facial appearance: scruffily bearded and unkemptly dressed, well dressed and clean shaven, and the latter plus a bruised face.
The plot twist, when it finally comes, is sufficiently unexpected to raise an eyebrow. However, unlike Pearce's Leonard in MEMENTO, the characters are all so universally unattractive that it was hard to care when the patsy among them took the fall. Also, the director's decision to photograph in black and white added nothing as far as I was concerned; color would have sufficed. Blessedly, the run time is only 70 minutes. Perhaps they were on a shoestring budget.
My advice - rent MEMENTO instead.
Movie Review: If you like Memento . . . see this too
Summary: 3 Stars
You can really see how this was the precursor to MEMENTO in that he uses the same device of telling the movie out of sequence and gives you the surprise ending. Otherwise it has a very low budget look shot in B&W with English actors that are sometimes hard to understand, but its quick 70 minute length means that it never gets boring. The movie is about an unemployed writer that starts following people because he's bored. After tailing a thief for a while, the thief realizes that he's not a cop and decides to take the follower along on some break-ins. Told so out of sequence that you piece it together little by little, the follower follows and starts dating the girl whose house they broke into.
The DVD had a decent commentary, and a feature that lets you see the whole thing in sequence. This is like watching a touted ballplayer in his rookie season, a lot of promise and rewards to come.
Movie Review: didn't achieve what it could of
Summary: 3 Stars
This was Christopher Nolan's movie before "Memento." We can see why Miramax gave a chance on such a new unknown director. There are a lot of similarities between the two. The use of flashbacks, black and white, the noir story, the character's outsider personalities. Without "Following", he couldn't have made "Memento", the better developed film."Following" annoyed me though because it had so many possibilities but it just didn't take them. The first hour was intriguing. The plot was about a stalker who meets a thief that takes him in as a pupil. But Nolan felt a need to connect it all together which was where the movie went wrong. There doesn't need to be any connection. And the way he went around it is such an overdone concept.
Movie Review: A movie with a lot of promise
Summary: 3 Stars
Nolan's first might look a lot like a student film, but the writing and direction show the promise of what this director would become. A good one to watch for aspiring filmmakers.Movie Review: Warning
Summary: 1 Stars
At least on certain players such as the Apex, it is impossible to turn off the alternate-angle feature. I went specifically into the menu and selected for it to be off, but it comes back on with every chapter stop. It can be very distracting. It's a great film, but this managed to take me out of it. Columbia/TriStar also put out the Planet of the Apes DVD with a similar feature, but this one would turn on and off and truly was a feature. Not being able to turn it off keeps me from wanting to purchase the DVD, which I'd give 4 or 5 stars were it not for this flaw.