The End of Violence (1997) - Movie Review

Film:

Written by: Nicholas Klein, from a story by Nicholas Klein and Wim Wenders
Directed by: Wim Wenders
Starring: Bill Pullman, Andie MacDowell, Gabriel Byrne, Traci Lind, Pruitt Taylor Vince

My Advice: Wait for MST3K.

Let me try to synopsisize this thing for you. Bill Pullman is a movie producer who doesn't have time for his wife (MacDowell) and who almost gets killed by two hitmen for some reason but are spotted by Gabriel Byrne who sits in an observatory watching the entire L.A. basin when he's not boffing his housekeeper (Marisol Padilla Sánchez) or delivering pizza to his dad (Sam Fuller) and then killer satellites (or something even more sinister) save Pullman from sure death while on the side his wife starts boffing a rap star (K. Todd Freeman). Oh, and throw in some fair performance poetry (Nicole Parker) and something about an actress who wants you to define everything (Lind) and the detective who loves her (Vince). Sounds enticing, doesn't it?

Define crap? This film. Unbelievable that this is the same man who gave us Wings of Desire, one of my favorite films of all time. Granted, he also gave us the really unnecessary sequel to that film, but no matter. This is undoubtedly the worst film of the year I've seen so far. There is no frigging clue as to what the film is about, what the characters are doing, why they're doing those things, why they're doing the people they're doing, anything. I assume that Wenders is trying to make some kind of statement regarding violence, but the only thing that comes close is Lind's opening sequence where she wants the term "violence" defined and the person she is speaking with can't do it. Lind responds that in her line of work if you don't know what something is, you should not get involved with it. I don't know what this film is, and I'm begging you not to get involved with it. A horrendous, useless, soulless, sprawling two hours of your life you will not get back.

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