Customer Reviews

Noise

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Life is a loud, noisy Hell, isn't it? Hmmmm... correction, life in New York City is a loud, noisy Hell? How do I know it? Well... I happen to be in New York City as I am writing this and, from my 15th floor hotel suite I can hear the loud police and ambulance sirens, the garbage trucks, the horns, the occasional helicopter and, louder than them all was Noise, the movie which I just watched.

The cast:
- Tim Robbins: the superhero, the Rectifier. Not quite getting Hegel, because he's constantly disturbed by car alarms. Tim does everything within and without the law to get things quieter and car alarms banned.
- William Baldwin: the mayor's... something. It's not clear why he's in this movie but he's another name added to a rather prestigious cast.
- William Hurt: the mayor himself. He seems to be 'pro noise' but we don't know why because he plays a rather small part too.
- Bridget Moynahan: Tim's semi-Russian not-girlfriend, about to leave for London to study philosophy. She has a pretty good understanding of Hegelian dialectics.
- many others: Tim's wife, his kid daughter, judges, cops, New Yorkers

The main message seems to be that we should be mad as Hell (see above) and that we shouldn't take it any more but we don't because we're like sheep or cattle strolling into the slaughter house and little can be done to fix things except maybe getting a court order (clever). And, of course, the movie is supposed to be funny. There are secondary themes and digressions but the movie should be seen so I won't be going into any more details.

In the end, after 90 minutes of constant anti-noise pleas and loud demonstrations I could not help but ask myself 'why?'. The movie does have its funny moments and noise pollution in New York is real but, somehow, I was left with the impression that someone really, really wanted to throw a lot of talent into a semi-low budget movie discussing an issue that was socially-responsible but not too controversial so... how about 'noise'?

After a lot of thinking following my watching 'Noise', I now agree that noise, especially noise produced by car alarms is annoying. I also agree that we, New Yorkers, should never again behave like sheep and we should do something about loud car alarms. But... wait. I am NOT a New Yorker. In fact, I'll be leaving New York tomorrow. However, if anyone wants me to sign some anti-noise petition... I'll think about it.

Final thoughts: Tim Robbins is a good actor and Bridget Moynahan is a fresh face. They both performed well. Noise is okay to watch on a movie channel or as a rental if nothing else worth watching is available. On the other hand, I doubt that Tim Robbins, William Hurt or William Baldwin would consider 'Noise' as a significant achievement in their careers. Three stars as in 'okay but...' seems to be fair.

I feel like I watched a diff movie than the first reviewer, cos I really loved this movie. I liked the grittiness and realism it displayed. And even without that, how could anyone NOT enjoy a movie starring Tim Robbins, William Hurt and the gorgeous & talented Bridget Moynahan? How many of us have gritted our teeth and at times felt like throwing a chair through the window when the noise outside gets so loud and persistent you feel like you're losing it? This movie is not unlike the Michael Douglas vehicle, Falling Down, where he went slowly nuts and took it out on bullies and bad guys. I watched this movie at a private screening when it was first released and I jumped at the chance to own a copy for my private library. Highly recommend this movie.

Tim Robbins plays well to do NYC attorney married to a beautiful wife who is a classical musician. Their daughter is a product of their mutual and genuine love for each other and everything seems fine until one day during his wife's home rehearsal of the cello piece her husband gets annoyed by a car alarm. It does not stop there. Suddenly car alarms are everywhere waking up his young daughter in the late hours of the night, disturbing lovemaking between him and his wife. It all escalates when one day our hero is caught by a police breaking into a car in order to shut off the car alarm by disabling the car battery. His life seems to spiral from there on; first, he is fined for damage, then he is kicked out of the house by his wife and finally he looses his job. Without family, job and in the new apartment, all that is left is to fight noises in the NYC. Our hero becoimes known as a "Rectifier" (very funny!), man who takes on single handedly car alarms in the city, until the mayor decides that this battle is personal. William Hurt is fantastic in his role of a mayor who is more concerned about being liked by his constituents than doing the right thing. I loved the part of the movie where Robins vandalizes car in a manner of their alarm tune - each swing corresponds to the tune of the alarm. Robbins is funny, sexy adn totaly likable in his role. Definitely another one of the movies where Robbins is making his statement, but this is quite funny and deeply human movie. It is almost impossible not to identify parts of any one of us with his character. Great movie.

This is a very tongue-in-cheek dark comedy about a man who takes the Noise in his life very seriously. Tim Robbins plays David, a man who is so distracted by the noise surrounding him in New York city that he cannot live a normal life. His solution, to become the Rectifier, a vigilante sneak who gives people with those darn car alarms exactly what they deserve no matter what the cost.

This movie was hilarious, if a bit sad at times. This is not an action film but David nonetheless sees himself as a superhero of sorts. In typical superhero style he has to loose everything to become the vigilante he wants to be. The difference this time is losing it is his choice, kind of.

Where the movie started to fail a little bit was when David's new love interest talks him into trying to get legislation against noise put into place. This is a bit weird, and the movie takes itself a bit too seriously.

Still as a dry, dark comedy this movie had me and my husband in stitches most of the time. Just don't take it too seriously or try to get a message out of it. If you need some sort of significant question to ponder from this movie it would be broader than the topics investigated in the movie. I guess it would be this, "What would happen if people stopped tolerating every annoyance they deal with in a day and started to really do something about?" The answer is probably chaos, but it is still funny to contemplate.

** Early plot spoilers**

I am not a fan of Tim Robbins. He bores me to tears. Think films tend to do the same. I had put this film back on the rack 4 times before I got it. Tim Robbins plays a vigilante who hates noise so he lives in NYC.. He has taken it upon himself to destroy car alarms etc. that bother him. He leaves stickers behind at scene of the crime so people know he is "The Rectifier." His wife discovers what he has been doing and suggests "close the window." Robbins is too proud to be pushed around by noise makers. "What if I want the window open?" he responds. Eventually he gets arrested again. This time he goes to jail, loses his job and his wife, who suggested he see a shrink. He gets out of jail and maintains his quest. I enjoyed the way the movie ended, that was genius and entertaining, however the rest of the movie was not. The writers went half way to create symbolism and metaphors. They should concentrated on making the film entertaining. The movie contains sexual scenes, nudity, and the f-bomb. What was up with the girl with the French(?) accent complaining about her ugly looking privates? I keep reminding myself not to watch any Tim Robbins films but I do anyway.

Who can't identify with the harried, frazzled, infuriated protagonist of this film? Car alarms, back-up beepers, inane cellphone chatter -- we're all drowning in a surfeit of noise, and the overall quality of life degrades around us incessantly as a result. But what can we do about it?

Well, David Owen (a wonderfully frustrated, about-to-erupt Tim Robbins) has the solution. In the guise of The Rectifier, he smashes into cars with yawping car alarms & shuts them off, leaving a small card with his symbol. Needless to say, this gets him in trouble with the law -- but an arrest or two isn't about to stop him in his seemingly quixotic crusade.

Simply developed as a comedy, this would be a successful film. But writer/director Henry Bean takes it further, adding some rough edges & interesting layers of texture with Owen's personal life, philosophical musings, and reflections on the nature of contemporary life. Not all of this works -- I'd like to have seen some of it developed at greater length, while other threads seem to drift off into limbo entirely -- but it does take what might have been a competent but predictable premise into more challenging territory.

I'd be remiss if I didn't single out William Hurt's performance as the smarmy, self-satisfied blowhard of a mayor. You just want to smack him or kick him down the stairs! His eventual comeuppance is one of the more satisfying examples of poetic justice I've seen in a long time.

The film appeared & disappeared all too quickly, but I think it has genuine cult potential, much like "Office Space." Both films have something worthwhile & even sobering to say about everyday life in America, sweetened just a bit with comedy.

Meanwhile, stop & think about the last time you enjoyed real silence, a space without intrusion by banality & stupidity & noise. You just might realize how precious & rare those times are, and just how much we need them. And if you're driven to take action of some sort ... more than a few of us will understand completely!

***1/2

David Owen is as mad as hell and he's not going to take it anymore. What he`s mad about is car alarms. Car alarms that go off in the middle of the night, or when he's trying to put his colicky baby to sleep, or when he's making love to his wife, or when he's just this close to grasping a particularly dense passage in a treatise by Hegel. After years of putting up with this ubiquitous urban din and vainly pleading with the authorities to do something about it, David finally resorts to vigilantism, smashing out the windows and dismantling the alarms of the offending vehicles, even going so far as to leave a calling card in his wake identifying himself as The Rectifier. Soon the mysterious noise-fighter has achieved near folk-hero status among his fellow Manhattanites and become a true thorn-in-the-side to the city's unctuous mayor, played amusingly by William Hurt.

Sort of a dark comic, upscale version of "Taxi Driver," "Noise" is a rage-against-the-machine fantasy that chooses as its target the relentless cacophony of city life. David, who's a successful attorney in his day job, isn't quite as off the rails as Travis Bickle, but there are times when his obsessiveness begins to border on the psychotic. Is David suffering from mental illness or is he simply acting out against the impotency and inadequacy he feels in all areas of his life? Or does he just get off on hating and being angry all the time? Whatever the underlying psychological reason, once he establishes himself as The Rectifier, David develops a whole new outlook on life. And who among us can't identify at least to some extent with David`s frustration, for don't we all have something that forever gets under our skin and that we would do just about anything we could to get it to stop? David just happens to be the one person to actually act on that impulse.

Written and directed by Henry Bean, "Noise" is a satire of metropolitan neuroticism performed in a minor key. Tim Robbins carries the film with his understated portrait of a man wound up so tight that he threatens at any moment to completely unravel. He receives solid support from Bridget Moynihan as the wife who can't understand why the man she married has suddenly turned into a raving lunatic, and Margarita Levieva as an attractive newspaper reporter who uncovers The Rectifier's true identity and wants to explore what really makes this explosive man-of-the-people figure "tick."

The humor isn't always as uproarious as it could be, but everyone, not just city-dwellers, should find something to appreciate in David Owens' amusingly extended rant.

I can imagine being in his shoes but I don't think I would go so far. After all the movie is fiction. I don't remember it being advertised when the movie came out. But I found it on a On Demand service one day and enjoyed it so much I bought the DVD.

Noise is an fantastic deviation from the norm that sadly did not make enough of a splash when it was released, which was only 2 years ago I was amazed to find out. Robbins plays alawyer that is constantly annoyed with the noise of living in New York city. Added on top of the stresses of his home life and work, Robbins begins to take the fight to the source, becoming a high profile vandal known as the Rectefier. His attacks on his foe draw the ire of the mayor of New York City, and the battle between them for Robbins sanity follows a variety of interesting turns.

Robbins acting in this is top notch, supported by several smaller names, most of whom held their weight, but was nearly poisoned by a few parts that felt overblown and outrageous.

There are quite a few scenes that feel drastically out of place, and Robbins tailspin marriage and separated affair feels a bit overdone, almost to the point of softcore pornography. But aside from this weird turn, the movie was hysterical, with several scenes worth watching repeatedly, and an ending message that's uplifting and empowering, that the little guy can still slay the giant.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this movie. While I don't share Tim Robbins or his wife's political views, I have also enjoyed Tim Robbins the actor. He has a very natural, easy way about him. The supporting cast are also very good.

The subject of noise pollution is near and dear to my heart. I'm extremely sensitive to external noises, whether it be an annoying car alarm, a neighbors annoying dog barking, idiots driving by with a 1,000 watts of stereo system in their car (and wanting everyone to know it), annoyingly loud garbage trucks (touched on in the movie) etc. We seem to live in a world that is increasingly self-centered, where people only care about their own needs. Rudeness abounds. I guess as our cities become more and more populated increasing noise pollution is the expected result, but it's disturbing how many of the noise polluters truly don't care about the fact they are bothering someone else. Our cities have gotten noisier and ruder and this film tackles those issues head on. I found it to be refreshingly original, funny, well written, and well acted.

One star was deducted for a scene involving two women spreading their legs for each other and admiring how "pretty" and how "ugly" their respective vagina's look. One of the women then goes on to complain about how bad it makes her feel to have an ugly looking vagina. Really, the whole scene should have been cut, it was pointless, vulgar, and very distasteful.

Still, I highly recommend this movie just for it's sheer originality. Such a simple concept, man goes vigilante after being fed up with loud, obnoxious car alarms. A really neat movie evolved from that simple idea, and while there is very little creativity in Hollyweird these days, the independents can still be counted on for that.