Jun. 27, 2002 - 11:40 pm
a.k.a. Hate. this one was recommended a few days ago by a reader with a passion for some edgier films. it was nice to see something like this after all the classical Hollywood i've been seeing recently. this is a French art film by Mathieu Kassovitz starring Vincent Cassel, who you should remember from Elizabeth (1998), The Messenger (1999) and Shrek (2001), and a couple of other guys who play his character's friends. all three characters go by their real life names in the film too, which is unusual.
the film is in black and white which works well for the material. it's a story of three young men living out one crazy day in the projects outside of Paris. the police have been attacking the people constantly and the people have been looting, fighting, burning things down, etc. the previous night, they put one of the 3 protagonists' friends in the hospital. Vinz swears that he'll kill a cop if that friend dies. the day is spent killing time and trying not to kill anyone else or get killed in the mean time.
i enjoyed the movie, but i didn't feel like i came away from it with very much. i thought the message was very simple and not extraordinarily original. it was great acting though and a good bit of entertainment. sorry, i don't have much else to say. it's a dull-feeling night.
oh, i did notice that my comment about Spider-Man (2002) dropping out of the top 100 was correct.