"The End Of Violence"!!! How grand-sounding! Another hopelessly pretentious and clumsily made drama as only Wim Wenders can make it.
From all the German directors who ever made it outside the confines of Germany he is easily the worst. At the very beginning he gives us a taste of nonsense to come: Pullman informs us that he went into movie-making because as a child he was afraid(!) of movies (and people in general). First of all, I've never heard of "movie-phobia", and even if such a person existed outside of Wenders's silly fantasy world they would probably end up in a lunatic asylum at best, and not as a successful yuppie.
The next nonsense is Byrne telling a friend that the reason he doesn't drive is that he wants to have as little to do with modern technology as possible; meanwhile, he works in an observatory, surrounded by amazing high-tech gadgetry! Driving a car, by comparison, is like living in a cave! This wasn't meant to be Wenders's humour but an attempt to define Byrne as a complex and fascinating character. The attempt failed. After Pullman, the hot-shot producer, more-or-less mysteriously survives the kidnap and attempted murder, he is virtually adopted by a Latino family! And works there as a gardener or something for months to come! Weird, yes, but in a dumb way. All the while it is so obvious that the bald grim-faced guy is responsible for all the nasty goings-on.
Then there is the detective who starts his investigation by flirting with a stunt woman(!)-turned-actress and later professes his love to her even though they still barely know each other! After they have sex, she rewards him with info as to the whereabouts of the missing Pullman. It's all so silly, so inane... The same detective hugs McDowell (Pullman's wife) during the interview!
In between all the absurd and far-fetched goings-on there are the obligatory "deep European" moments: we have a black woman recite "poetry" - or modern poetry - which is so painfully PC, not to mention pointless, stupid and so very dull. After she finishes her pretentious little poem (about her father playing with her vagina) the stunt woman approaches her and says that she never met her daddy. How deep is that?! Later on, a badly-written black character raps more poetry and gets an applause for it; we later get to see his penis, which is also obligatory in "deep European art" films.
What's the point of that fight in the bar?! Utterly pointless. And what's with that dialogue between Pullman and McDowell at the end? What's all that nonsense about? Dumb, dumb, dumb... The mark of every bad director is to have children behave like adults, so why should Wim be an exception? The little Latino girl philosophizes about not having a chance to see her dead father: "but we can't always get what we want"; this, coming from the mouth of a 7 year-old! She also says something in the last scene but by then I was almost half-asleep so I don't remember it.
But what can one honestly expect from a person who makes a movie that is partly scripted by Bono(?!) in which he casts a rank amateur such as Milla Jovovich, in a piece of garbage known as "Million Dollar Hotel"? It is monumentally ironic and arrogant that Wim makes a brief mock-attack at Schwarzenegger early on in the movie; the latter may be a bad actor, but his contribution to the world of film is already about a hundred times that of Wim's.
Wim even attempts brief self-satire (if I may call it that) by having the Hungarian director (Kier) make a sarcastic remark about making a mistake to leave Europe to make movies. In reality, Wim should thank Satan, with whom he must have a contract, that he ever got a chance to direct at all, let alone for Hollywood. As is plain to see, I have used many exclamation marks in this review; the movie is full of absurdities, bad dialogue, and is rather pointless. But the "!" is more a reflection of my hatred towards talentless, pretentious European directors than this particular movie - as insipid as it doubtlessly is. Leonard Maltin actually refers to this film as "gorgeous to look at" but even he wasn't so gullible to give it a good rating.
From all the German directors who ever made it outside the confines of Germany he is easily the worst. At the very beginning he gives us a taste of nonsense to come: Pullman informs us that he went into movie-making because as a child he was afraid(!) of movies (and people in general). First of all, I've never heard of "movie-phobia", and even if such a person existed outside of Wenders's silly fantasy world they would probably end up in a lunatic asylum at best, and not as a successful yuppie.
The next nonsense is Byrne telling a friend that the reason he doesn't drive is that he wants to have as little to do with modern technology as possible; meanwhile, he works in an observatory, surrounded by amazing high-tech gadgetry! Driving a car, by comparison, is like living in a cave! This wasn't meant to be Wenders's humour but an attempt to define Byrne as a complex and fascinating character. The attempt failed. After Pullman, the hot-shot producer, more-or-less mysteriously survives the kidnap and attempted murder, he is virtually adopted by a Latino family! And works there as a gardener or something for months to come! Weird, yes, but in a dumb way. All the while it is so obvious that the bald grim-faced guy is responsible for all the nasty goings-on.
Then there is the detective who starts his investigation by flirting with a stunt woman(!)-turned-actress and later professes his love to her even though they still barely know each other! After they have sex, she rewards him with info as to the whereabouts of the missing Pullman. It's all so silly, so inane... The same detective hugs McDowell (Pullman's wife) during the interview!
In between all the absurd and far-fetched goings-on there are the obligatory "deep European" moments: we have a black woman recite "poetry" - or modern poetry - which is so painfully PC, not to mention pointless, stupid and so very dull. After she finishes her pretentious little poem (about her father playing with her vagina) the stunt woman approaches her and says that she never met her daddy. How deep is that?! Later on, a badly-written black character raps more poetry and gets an applause for it; we later get to see his penis, which is also obligatory in "deep European art" films.
What's the point of that fight in the bar?! Utterly pointless. And what's with that dialogue between Pullman and McDowell at the end? What's all that nonsense about? Dumb, dumb, dumb... The mark of every bad director is to have children behave like adults, so why should Wim be an exception? The little Latino girl philosophizes about not having a chance to see her dead father: "but we can't always get what we want"; this, coming from the mouth of a 7 year-old! She also says something in the last scene but by then I was almost half-asleep so I don't remember it.
But what can one honestly expect from a person who makes a movie that is partly scripted by Bono(?!) in which he casts a rank amateur such as Milla Jovovich, in a piece of garbage known as "Million Dollar Hotel"? It is monumentally ironic and arrogant that Wim makes a brief mock-attack at Schwarzenegger early on in the movie; the latter may be a bad actor, but his contribution to the world of film is already about a hundred times that of Wim's.
Wim even attempts brief self-satire (if I may call it that) by having the Hungarian director (Kier) make a sarcastic remark about making a mistake to leave Europe to make movies. In reality, Wim should thank Satan, with whom he must have a contract, that he ever got a chance to direct at all, let alone for Hollywood. As is plain to see, I have used many exclamation marks in this review; the movie is full of absurdities, bad dialogue, and is rather pointless. But the "!" is more a reflection of my hatred towards talentless, pretentious European directors than this particular movie - as insipid as it doubtlessly is. Leonard Maltin actually refers to this film as "gorgeous to look at" but even he wasn't so gullible to give it a good rating.