Customer Reviews

Rage

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

 

 

I see all of Sally Potter's films. She is always different, new, and interesting.
I saw her latest, RAGE, at The Box, in SOHO. I had read online of this provocative movie with a wonderful cast set in the world of fashion; about its unique mobile premiere. I was puzzled; how could a movie be shown on the tiny screen of a cell phone? And then I saw it. Now I want to have it on my cell phone. Imagine, Judy Dench talking to you on your own cell, like your friend, who trusts you enough to tell you the truth, that fashion has become an obsession akin to porn. And Steve Buscemi, Lily Cole, Bob Balaban, Patrick Adams, John Leguizamo, Dianne Wiest, Jude Law, all of them would became your personal friends and enemies. They speak to you directly.
They were speaking directly to me on the big screen, each image so crisp, so intense; each face so close, you can see every tiny movement of a muscle. So much drama without outside action. There are no sets here; you don't need them at all. The face is the set. And the costume. The faces are everything here, a landscape depicting all kind of battles.
RAGE tells the story of a crisis at a New York fashion house through a series of interviews, shot on his cell phone camera by a young boy named Michelangelo. The interviews are taken over the seven days in which a runway accident becomes a murder investigation. It's a funny, sad, bitter, tragic collection of monologues, spoken directly to the camera. Each shot is a close-up of a character against different color backgrounds. Every actor performs alone. They are so close that it is impossible for them to hide anything from you; just as you can't hide anything from yourself.
After watching RAGE on the big screen and online, I ordered it on DVD.
I want to have it; I want to be able to see those faces close and hear the voice of an Artist who never takes a conventional road, Sally Porter.

Sally Potter takes chances. There are so many unique aspects of this film that reviewing it is difficult. The major aspects of the film include the very au courant 'rage' of blogging as a means of communication, the 'rage' to stay young and in fashion (that almost daily changing series of fads of what is in and what is out), the 'rage' of focusing everyone's attention on celebrity antics including drugs and death, the 'rage' to buy everything (if you don't own it and it looks like it is going to be popular then buy it), the 'rage' of climbing into the media world, be it film, fashion, television searching for that promised 15 minutes of fame, the 'rage' of PR, minding the selling promotion of a product without concern of its value, the 'rage' of creating new fragrances with a special name for fame, and the 'rage' for maintaining a wealthy or famous class and a poor or service class. Potter manages to take us through all of these phases with brilliant writing, fascinating character studies, experimental lighting and photography, and one of the best uses of color fields ever on film.

The premise is simple yet strong. A blogger named Michelangelo follows the backstage proceedings of a New York Fashion Show: we never see him, we see only his daily blog entry and the images of the interviewees through his cellphone camera - the individuals all are part of the hyped fashion show cum ramp walk of fashionista Merlin (Simon Abkarian) who designed the clothes, Miss Roth (Dianne Wiest) who owns the company, Mona Carvell (Judi Dench) the fashion critic who writes for the media coverage, Otto (Jakob Cedergren) who works managing PR, Mr. White (Bob Balaban) who directs the show until he is replaced by the overeducated image builder Dwight Angel (Patrick J. Adams), Frank (Steve Buscemi) a hard nosed photographer who has spent better time on the war fronts in the Middle East taking 'meaningful pictures', financier Tiny Diamonds (Eddie Izzard) who buys everything he wants including his bodyguard Jed (John Leguizamo), models Minx (Jude Law in drag) and Lettuce Leaf (Lily Cole), pizza delivery boy transformed in to model Vijay (Riz Ahmed), and Anita de Los Angeles (Adriana Barraza) the seamstress who simply wants to remain invisible. Two deaths occur - one car accident and one shooting - and that brings in Detective Homer (David Oyelowo) who investigates while displaying his own brand of Shakespeare to the blogger's cellphone camera.

All of this complex story happens in the form of interviews - each star is dressed in well designed clothes and each poses in front of various colored screens. The ending of the interview brings the whole experience together. Potter's immaculate and imaginative script gives each one of these gifted actors room to shine in a one person act. It just simply works and never for a moment does it become dull. Sally Potter gave us 'Orlando', 'Yes', 'The Man Who Cried', and 'The Tango Lesson'. She is one of the most imaginative and skilled writer/director units in the business. Grady Harp, July 11

I read the reviews first before seeing the film. I understand the frustration viewers have with this film. It is an infuriating film that only reveals a very small bit, piece by piece, and only at the pace that the filmmaker sets. Its spare style offers little context, unlike traditional film form which is typically rich with imagery. Spare sets; talking heads. If you can get past the first half, you are drawn in. It's getting used to the film's format that is the challenge. The cast is extraordinary; the range of performances truly astounding. Watching Jude Law in drag is worth it alone! A blogger uses his phone camera to interview a range of characters involved in the production of a fashion show. Each interviewee has their own point of view. Collectively, they represent the cast of characters both behind and in front of the camera. Each character is only a part of a whole; each interview is a piece of a puzzle. At first, it is your typical low-production-value documentary. But as events unfold, the interviews take on more layers of meaning, more complexity. Slowly, with each ensuing interview, a picture emerges of what actually took place off camera. By the end of the film, we come to understand the pivotal role of the interviewer/ blogger -- how media, however amateurish and non-mainstream, influences art and outcomes. This is a sly film. It obliges us to reflect deeply on the nature of popular culture, popular media, and the emerging role of non-mainstream media, e.g., teenage bloggers.

Don't be misled by the good reviews that seem to outnumber the bad ones here. The bad ones are genuine. This film is utterly worthless. If you are a particular fan of one of the stars, and you feel compelled to watch every film they have ever made, then I suppose you will have to sit through the whole thing -- otherwise run for the hills. I didn't waste a whole 98 minutes of my life, as one of the reviewers here did, but I wasted 30, then I had to turn it off. Luckily it was just a netflix movie -- I can only imagine having to sit through this at the full cinema price, or having purchased it on DVD for $25. The reviewer that said that people were leaving the cinema in droves is accurate. Don't waste your money. I would have given this 0 stars, if I could have. This is now my worst movie in recent memory (though it does have a good cast whose talents were wasted in this turkey), now supplanting The Happening, another one that you don't want to see.

The movie was pretty interesting since it is done completely in interview style. The end was a bit odd and didn't feel it fit into the movie but otherwise it was good.

It is an interesting movie.There are a diversity of complex characters that are impressive.The movie forces the viewer to imagine what is going on, as the audience only hears what is going on.My favorite characters were Minx(played by Jude Law),Lettuce Leaf(played by Lily Cole),Mona Carvell(played by Judi Dench),and Anita de Los Angeles
(played bt Adriana Barraza).This movie is not for everyone obviously.It is basically the characters talking about their world.The background is simply a colored wall.It is easy to see how many would grow tired with the simple setting.But if you are a fan of films with in depth conversations,this movie is for you.

Just a bunch of big name actors sitting in front of the camera talking to it with different colored backgrounds. Very boring, thinking of reselling it.

Don't waste your time or money. Seriously, don't. I just watched this movie online and I want the last 98 minutes of my life back.

They way this movie was advertised to me, it seemed like a murder mystery that is solved by the interweaving interviews of everyone there. It's not. Don't think it is. This movie is about a dozen or so people involved in the fashion industry, whining about their problems to a boy with a camera. This boy then puts these interviews on the website. Then, an accident happens with a model at the show. They try to put on the show again. Then a model is apparently murdered. Then, the next time they attempt to put on the show, some sort of a riot happens, which is filled with children thanks to some marketing attempt by one of the characters and the popular website by the camera operator. People get hurt. This is the extent of the information given by the people on camera. There isn't really a plot, aside from these three events we don't even see, but we somewhat hear. Only snippets of information are given. It's a waste. We never find out who killed who. We never find out who died in the final 10 minutes. We don't know. It was so unsatisfying. There was no resolution. There was no conflict. This movie was basically people talking and just barely alluding to the events that happen off screen. The dialogue doesn't give any description of it, at all. It was abysmal.

The one thing that may make this movie worth watching, if you have absolutely nothing left to do with your life, at all, is the acting. The actors in this movie made the characters seem to have depth, even with the lackluster dialogue and barely-there plot. Jude Law's portrayal of Minx was incredibly amusing, and Steve Buscemi was great as always. And Dame Judi Dench stole the show. But I couldn't even enjoy any of this because, well, I grew tired of just watching people talk. The backgrounds were great and contrasted with the looks of the characters, but if I'm just sitting there, watching people talk, it has to be interesting. This wasn't.

All in all, don't watch it. There's an accident, a murder, a riot, and Jude Law in drag. It's tiring after the first 10 minutes. This movie was supposed to be a 'new kind of experience'...It was a new experience; a mediocre one at most.

This movie is definitely different; unconventional would be a good way to put it. A different genre definitely. But think of the analog of looking at paintings. Modern art. The product can be so much more on an emotional and/or aesthetic level than the sum of its parts. This film is such.
I watched this at home and enjoyed it in the comfort of my own family room. I did not have to trek to the theater and invest an whole evening and expect the usual action, drama, stimulation, you name in what we usually get in our conventional American movies.

This was billed as something groundbreaking and exciting. Live Premiere, London's BFI/Southbank linking up with screens in cinemas all over the place, big name cast, new type of genre. As we sat, we waited, we watched and we waited some more. This is 99 minutes of absolutely mind numbingly boring schlock. Interviews set to a blue/red/green screen. Not a single line has any meaning, is well acted or engaging. Big names such as Judi Dench, Jude Law, Dianne Wiest and Eddie Izzard appear almost as if they have been held hostage and forced to read garbage from an autocue to secure their release.
Apparently writer/director Sally Potter's film is about how 'fashion wrecks lives' and she aims to expose the shallow world of fashion in a lighthearted way (it's billed as a comedy). In reality, we are treated to one pathetic interview after another, no outside shots, no story, plot, nothing.
The reviews are consistently bad, and as one reviewer wrote on the IMDB "one of the dullest and most purposeless movies I've ever seen in my entire life". The audience in my cinema agreed, they began to walk out in such numbers, that at one point I began to wonder if this was some kind of hoax and we were being filmed as part of an experiment about the staying power of a cinema-goers.
Rage shows how ugly and downright wrong it is to allow the production, fiance and distribution of 'anything goes' cinema.