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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Asia Argento is all you need to know, August 9, 2008
If it weren't for the smoldering performance of Asia Argento, and I'm not talking about the parts where you get to see her tattoos, I would admit defeat and zero this one out. I don't know why the film is called Boarding Gate; the plot is thin and confusing; Michael Madsen can whisper and grunt all he wants and nobody is going to mistake it for good dramatic acting; the film seems to meander along in prologue mode for about forty-five minutes and then, BANG! somebody dies with great surprise; despite the fact that the location moves to a new country, the film doesn't seem to go anywhere; and not understanding the story won't prevent me from saying with confidence that the ending is lame.
Ms. Argento doesn't need to act. She lives the role of Sandra, relying on her naturally scary-cool charisma and complex heart to suck us in to her character--the script isn't going to do it. She's transcendentally tough and vulnerable at the same time. From one moment to the next she is spitting razor sharp barbs and then crying but never weeping, never weak. The incomplete script works to her advantage here. It's not clear why she is attracted so deeply to either of her love interests with the net result that she appears twisted, courting danger and abuse to feel alive.
Contrary to what the movie posters might lead one to believe, Argento doesn't parade around the entire film in her underwear. There's one quick shot of her being thrown to a bed by her lover where upon she delivers the most authentic and erotic response I've seen in a movie, and there's an extended scene in Madsen's apartment where she's in and out of her dress a couple times. The latter is the best scene in the film, not for its limited display of flesh but for the warped cruelty in the battle of wits mirrored in stop/start kinky sex they never manage to get very far along with for one reason or another.
Boarding Gate is billed as a thriller and, given its writer/director's resumé, is supposedly about how selfishly cruel and inhuman the world of contemporary multi-national capitalists can be. Blah blah blah. Who's arguing that point? What emerges from the film is a portrait of a modern day neo-femme-fatale who doesn't dress nice or comb her hair trying to juggle a couple of corporate wackbirds (I stole that word from somebody) to her meager advantage and gets a lesson in betrayal along the way. The action parts of the film, the parts where people run around and shoot guns and stuff, aren't interesting at all. The thriller parts, the parts where mystery and suspense are supposed to propel the film, aren't articulated very well. It's the parts where the players settle down to talking smack on one another to gain psychological advantage that are red hot brutal good. If you are a fan of Asia Argento and like your eroticism dark and implied, or are interested in finding out what Argento is capable of as an actress, then check out Boarding Gate. If you are looking for a good thriller, or a film with a little action and good production values, look somewhere else.
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12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Highbrow Softcore, June 23, 2008
Just so you know, Asia Argento only spends about eight minutes total screen time in black lingerie. If that's your main reason for watching this movie, adjust your expectations accordingly.
"Boarding Gate" is a highbrow version of a straight to video erotic thriller whose main appeal (beyond the aforementioned lingerie) lies in its odd juxtaposition of artsy sheen and pulpy core. The plot is a deliberately unfleshed out contraption involving a love affair gone bad, deadly double crosses, and sinister "corporate" intrigue that will be risible to anyone who has ever had an office job. Even more so than in in most noir, this is just a pretext for an extended exercise in style, or actually two exercises. The first half of the movie is a kinky pas de deux between Argento's Sandra, a prostitute/industrial spy and her former lover Miles (Michael Madsen), a down on his luck financier with whom she remains inexplicably obsessed. (After this movie, Asia Argento's status as an object of desire among pudgy fifty year old guys will be set in stone.) Despite a constant background hum of preposterousness, their meandering confrontations are well done, and the French cinema flourishes seem entirely appropriate window dressing for what is basically a long softcore tease. Then there's a twist, and "Boarding Gate" shifts gears into a protracted chase through the streets of Hong Kong. ("It becomes a B-movie," Argento says with winning candor in the DVD extras.) The cinematography is striking in this half--director Olivier Assayas has a flair for neon cityscapes--but a chase scene is a chase scene, and this one overstays its welcome.
For some, I imagine the movie's insistence on its own wised-up sophistication--the big city glamor of Paris and Hong Kong, Brian Eno on the soundtrack, and the stunt casting of Kim Gordon as a shady corporate player (a mistake: Gordon may the coolest person to have inhabited lower Manhattan in the past twenty five years, but as an actress she's wooden)--will be a bit much. For me, it was all just part of Assayas's jet set fantasy world. Only in a couple of performances, however, does "Boarding Gate" show any actual heart. Michael Madsen brings a certain burly gravitas to what could easily be just another rich guy role, and Asia Argento really shines. Her character slips back and forth between feral eroticism, femme fatale toughness, and dewy vulnerability, often multiple times in the same scene. There isn't a shred of psychological reality to be found here, but you don't care because it's so compelling to watch Argento go running off in five different directions at once. I get the feeling that her performance is the only thing in the film that worked exactly as intended. And, yes, for those eight minutes or so, she looks amazing.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A swirling mass of confusion saved only by Asia Argento, September 1, 2008
My husband and I only watched this because of the provocative DVD cover and lived to regret it. Sure, Asia Argento looks sexy on the cover, giving the impression that this is some sort of sexy thriller. It really is neither - the sexy bits are all kind of fuzzy, and some of the sexy scenes end up being more brutal than sexy, and as for the thriller part, the meandering script adds more to one's confusion than answer questions.
The basic plot - Argento plays Sandra, an ex-hooker who has a sordid history with financier, Miles [Michael Madsen] who is based in Paris. Sandra needs money to buy herself a new life running a club partnership in Beijing, and this causes her to re-enter Miles' life as well as an Asian couple, Lester and Sue [Carl Ng and Kelly Lin]. A tryst gone wrong ends with an unexpected murder and Sandra finds herself on the run - taking off to Hong Kong where even more plot intrigues abound and the movie itself becomes a derailed mess.
There is even an appearance by Kim Gordon [of Sonic Youth] here - quite memorable if only because she is spewing Cantonese. At various points in the movie, we not only get an earful of English [and badly spoken English at times ], but also French and Cantonese.
As for eroticism, yes, there is a bit of that in the sex scenes between Sandra and Miles/ Sandra and Lester - but the chemistry really isn't very credible. What is credible though is Asia Argento's performance - she portrays a troubled woman convincingly, one who is able to exude a sense of the erotic whilst appearing demented. She really should be in better movies [not B-graders like this].
Final verdict: watchable for Argento's performance.
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