Word: subway
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Before getting too upset, sports fans, let's remember that there are lots of underprivileged, uncultured citizens who have never even seen a subway pit or eaten Tommy's cheesegrease subs...
...Subway, Luc Besson's retarded new film about crime and punishment in the Parisian underground, is everything you'd expect from the post-Diva school of French, filmmaking: lettuce-crisp photography, a plot no less difficult to follow than the average Jacobean tragedy, plenty of MTV ear-and-eye candy, a handsome hero, a tongue-in-chic heroine, and beaucoup world-weary supporting characters who walk around with Arc de Triomphe-sized chips on their shoulders...
...only problem is that Subway isn't as smart as it would like to be. In fact, it really isn't smart at all. Visually, stylistically, thematically, et cetera, it comes up empty in the Brains Department. The script is banal. The acting, deadpan-dull. And the images clutter up like so many hip books on a crowded coffee table. With the possible exception of Gremlins, Joe Dante's unintentionally horrific testament to the decline of Western Civilization, Subway may be the most completely offensive, manipulative, and downright irritating picture in recent memory...
...SUBWAY ISN'T ART, it's kitsch. It panders to an audience that gets a kick out of movies that stick their tongues out at themselves. Like Liquid Sky and the immensely overappreciated The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the Eighth Dimension, Subway takes the audience by the hand and says, "Look, kid. It's time to get a little crazy. For the next coupla hours we're gonna talk about some serious things. Murder, Marriage Crime. The usual sociopathy. But not to worry, old buddy old pal [patting the audience, puplike, on the noggin], 'cause through...
...only problem with this approach is that it requires a light touch. See Alan Cox's wonderful Repo Man or Scorsese's street-smart After Hours for effortless demonstrations of a delicate hand. But Subway, with its insistent apathy and learn-while-you're-luny preachiness, is as subtle in the end as a Punch and Judy pugil stick...