FUNNY GAMES U.S.

By Matt Holmes / July 1, 2011

Michael HanekeBased on his own 1997 thriller Funny Games made in his native Austria Starring: Naomi Watts, Tim Roth, Michael Pitt, Brady Corbet, Devon Gearhart, Boyd Gaines, Siobhan Fallon Distributed by Warner Independent Pictures Film was released in the U.K. on April 4th 2008 Review by Matt Holmes

rating: 0.5

In a small art house theatre this week I saw what is undoubtedly the worst and most insulting motion picture of 2008 so far and thankfully it's now pretty much completely out of U.K. cinema's so you can avoid this cinematic tragedy. It's not because it's badly directed, it's not because it's badly acted... those are fine, really good at times in fact but it's because of it's tone and shameful exploitative art exercise which serves no other purpose than to lecture the audience in something which the film itself promotes. If ever the term "having your cake and eating it" reigns true it is for this piece of garbage. I don't like being told off when I go to the theatre, especially when it's for something I haven't done. I've paid my £5 to sit down and be entertained, be moved, be challenged psychologically or philosophically. I pay my money to see something new - I don't pay it to see a film which lectures me about violence in movies but is itself the most shockingly open in it's own since Eli Roth tortured students in Hostel. Talented Austrian director Michael Haneke pulls nothing back here. Funny Games is a cruel exercise in audience manipulation and violence, like Alfred Hitchcock's brilliant Psycho if the whole film was as shocking as the shower scene with Janet Leigh. If the whole of Psycho had none of the 'MacGuffin's' or the well rounded characters, or the settings, the pacing and was simply about Anthony Perkins torturing a poor women and enjoying it too - it might have gone something like this. It's uncompromising and every bit as chillingly effective as the first time Haneke shot this tale of a happy middle class family retreating to the comfort of their summer vacation home when they become part of a sickening and murderous game by two psychotic young boys. In this almost shot for shot redo, Naomi Watts and Tim Roth play Mr. and Mrs. Farber who along with their son George (Devon Gearhart) are tortured by inhumane games by two boys for their own sick amusement. The always sinister on screen Michael Pitt who kinda has half an innocent face, and half the face of a preserve young sexual pervert plays one of the boys with his sidekick BradyCorbert - equally as uncomfortable to be around and you just wonder if there characters are both mentally challenged because they show no humanity. They are the middle class sinister villains - the innocent white golf clothes, the glove wearing, the politeness... they are those young kids who will always get along with the older generation who appreciate these values highly but of course we know better. If you have ever seen Ropeby Alfred Hitchcock - they are almost like the bastard child of those two killers. But unlike Rope, we don't see them morally challenged and nor do we see them doubting their motives. They are one note characters who Haneke has used to act as ourselves - the voyeuristic viewers of violence for entertainment. But what message is brought around from acting and glorifying the intentions of what is being critiqued? Haneke, who first shot Funny Games over ten years ago in his homeland of Austria with actors from his own country has claimed that he wanted to make an English language version of this film way back when but Hollywood wouldn't touch it. He wanted it to be a lecture movie for American audiences who lapped up the violence in their multiplexes week in and week out - apparently Natural Born Killers was the movie that sparked this idea. But his essay, if that's what this is, feels so confused and gimmicky that it's hard to take serious. In the third act, a character acts as the film editor and rewinds some of what is shown to go back and change the ending. Why would I ever want to see that on screen? It's the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen on film. That kind of manipulation sums up this awful film in a nutshell there is only so much of this crap that you can take before you get sick. I did actually wonder if Haneke had made a movie he wanted you to walk out of. Several times his killers openly break the 3rd wall and look you in the eye and almost question what you are still doing watching the movie. It's something I had to question myself and at that point it's probably time to leave. I didn't but I gained nothing from staying. What a hideous film. A word though for Darious Khondji - the director of photography here. His work is gorgeous here... a bland and distilled mixing of whites and blues... the complete opposite of the atmospheric colours that he brought to Se7en but equally as chillingly and uncomfortable. He is one of the best in the business and if this half star is going to anyone, then it's deserved by his work undoubtedly. Haneke is a great director and all the actors here are really solid but I just wish they had come up with a better art film to get across a message. This film as is in no where near as clever as it thinks it is and I kinda felt disgusted by it.