Nov 28 2009
He Was a Quiet Man (2008)
Christian Slater and William H. Macy are very, VERY good actors. That is why it is so sad that they give it their all in a movie that is sloppy, plays with more CGI than it should have and is littered with plot-holes.
Christian Slater plays Bob, a quiet office worker who harassed more than your usual pencil pusher. He contemplates bringing in a gun and shooting several people, but always wusses out until one day somebody beats him to the punch. A bit pissed that the guy also paralyzed Bob’s love interest, Vanessa, Bob plugs the shooter with his gun making him a hero. His actions earn him a place at the top of the company as ‘Vice President of Creative Thinking’. Vanessa, however, is pissed at Bob for letting her lives and wants him to finish her off. He agrees, but wusses out again which causes Vanessa to move more of her body. They seems to live happily together as lovers, until a grief councilor at work fingers Bob and he learns that his boss, played wonderfully by William H Macy, still has a thing with Vanessa. This all leads up to a grand climax with Bob going back to his original plan.
Just reading that last paragraph makes He Was a Quiet Man seem like a decent movie, but what I neglected to mention were the visual elements which weigh this movie down. First off, I understand that the director, Frank A Cappello, was intending to inject symbolism into his movie with many of these elements. My beef with this is that he injects it so explicitly and often crowbars it in to the movie. There are CGI hummingbirds to symbolize temptation, sped-up footage of cars to symbolize how Bob is being left behind, CGI TALKING fish to display Bob’s inner thoughts (and give him a friend), and a CGI building explosion to symbolize Bob’s desire to destroy. And as if that weren’t enough, he has two music montages that are very cliche by movie standards. Not to mention there are subplots with a janitor and some other employees that goes nowhere.
I could have forgiven all this if the movie surprised me and took more chances, but everything feels oddly routine and expected. It sounds weird writing this about a movie with talking fish and a building explosion, but it just didn’t thrill me nor hold my attention as well as a more developed society-revenge flick like Falling Down. Granted, the movie pushed itself into different realms from being a psycho revenge film to an off-beat romance back to a psycho revenge film, but the transition is odd and was often confusing what with all the plot-holes left unanswered in the middle. It’s some pretty sloppy writing, although I didn’t expect much from the guy who wrote Subruban Commando.
DVD Dump Counter:
-2 gun related incidents in the office
-1 talking cussing fish
-4 scenes of CGI humming birds
-1 scene of parapalegic sex
-3 scenes of traffic moving too fast
-1 CGI building explosion
-2 music-video montages
-2 times the movie’s title is said
RATING: C-movie
The script is at best decent with a great cast doing their best, but the ridiculous inclusion of CGI elements and montages just pushes this movie into the land of the ridiculous. I’m not mad at the movie; I just don’t really feel anything for it since it had an interesting concept that never really surprised me. I wish He Was a Quiet Man was louder.
