I saw this movie at the Helsinki International Film Festival, more lovingly known as Love and Anarchy. The festival often caters to Johnnie To/Milkyway fans and this year we were "treated" to Accident.
This review contains major spoilers, so if you are interested in the film, I would suggest skipping this review. In short, i think this movie contains a near perfect story, but one of the worst scripts ever.
The story involves a group of contract killers that evade suspicion by staging elaborate murders that look like ACCIDENTS (Great premise). The group consists of four members: brain, fatty, uncle and an unnamed girl (Got to love these aliases, I mean who asks people to call them brain...a prick). The leader brain's wife (probably nicknamed heart, or perhaps the original fatty) died in a car crash which it would seem instigated brains contract killer lifestyle, and he seems to believe that the car crash was no mere ACCIDENT. The group get a contract to kill this innocent looking wheelchair-bound older dude (really uncool, btw). During the hit, something goes wrong and one of the group members gets killed, and brain is convinced this was no ACCIDENT either. Crazy times. This instigates the second part of the film, which focuses on brains operation to find out who set him up, killing his group member, listening to strangers have sex, murdering an innocent girl with the power of the sun, and getting killed himself. And for what? NOTHING! Yup, that's the big realization. Brain was a maniac, paranoid guy that saw figures in the shadows and great big schemes where there were none. Most likely this was his way to cope with the death of his wife, such a horrible act needed some rational reasoning, it could not be just an ACCIDENT. The idea that this guy was doomed by his own imagination and past experiences is just perfect. If this movie was remade by something like a Scorsese/DiCaprio collaboration they could really make something great. As it is....it's really bad. REALLY BAD.
You see the problem is that nearly every scene is unrealistic and thus unbelievable, and furthermore no character acts even semi-rationally, which makes the movie unconvincing and the characters meaningless. They are simply devices to advance an incredibly stupid script. OK, so brain is this intellectual mastermind that can orchestrate these insane domino effects, right? Then how is it, that he can't notice that one of his four members is clearly suffering from severe dementia. I mean so severe that he is popping pills at the rate of Tic Tacs. And the director makes the point of showing that brain is so careful not to leave any traces, paying with coins from a cloth and changing modes of transportation to loose any potential tails. Yet, still the guy is always right next to the murders, doesn't use gloves and leaves prints everywhere, makes the money drops in a parking lot with cameras (why?), the point being that clearly the character and script have not been developed very far. The best example of this are the murders. They are just too much based on chance. The first murder is just silly, the idea being that in the end there is a fallen banner that covers one fifth of the marks windshield, and for some reason instead of just driving past, he gets out and pulls the banner down, which results in a window breaking and the glass killing him. The one that just made everyone in the theater laugh was a murder that used a wet cord from a kite to transmit an electronic shock to the wheelchair-bound dude. I mean the idea that someone could predict how a kite would fly in a storm and where it would land is seriously idiotic. Anyway.
The other major issue is that this group is not sympathetic. They are contract killers with no redeeming features. From an ethical point, there is no reason for the audience to root for them, and the lack of a clear enemy through out most of the movie takes a lot of the potential tension away.
So all in all, the potential is there and I must say that I personally enjoyed watching the movie, just because it was so silly and unapologetic in its stupidity (the eclipse at the end, and that road sign...), so in a way this movie would rate 1 star based on script and 10 based on premise, hence the rating of 5.
This review contains major spoilers, so if you are interested in the film, I would suggest skipping this review. In short, i think this movie contains a near perfect story, but one of the worst scripts ever.
The story involves a group of contract killers that evade suspicion by staging elaborate murders that look like ACCIDENTS (Great premise). The group consists of four members: brain, fatty, uncle and an unnamed girl (Got to love these aliases, I mean who asks people to call them brain...a prick). The leader brain's wife (probably nicknamed heart, or perhaps the original fatty) died in a car crash which it would seem instigated brains contract killer lifestyle, and he seems to believe that the car crash was no mere ACCIDENT. The group get a contract to kill this innocent looking wheelchair-bound older dude (really uncool, btw). During the hit, something goes wrong and one of the group members gets killed, and brain is convinced this was no ACCIDENT either. Crazy times. This instigates the second part of the film, which focuses on brains operation to find out who set him up, killing his group member, listening to strangers have sex, murdering an innocent girl with the power of the sun, and getting killed himself. And for what? NOTHING! Yup, that's the big realization. Brain was a maniac, paranoid guy that saw figures in the shadows and great big schemes where there were none. Most likely this was his way to cope with the death of his wife, such a horrible act needed some rational reasoning, it could not be just an ACCIDENT. The idea that this guy was doomed by his own imagination and past experiences is just perfect. If this movie was remade by something like a Scorsese/DiCaprio collaboration they could really make something great. As it is....it's really bad. REALLY BAD.
You see the problem is that nearly every scene is unrealistic and thus unbelievable, and furthermore no character acts even semi-rationally, which makes the movie unconvincing and the characters meaningless. They are simply devices to advance an incredibly stupid script. OK, so brain is this intellectual mastermind that can orchestrate these insane domino effects, right? Then how is it, that he can't notice that one of his four members is clearly suffering from severe dementia. I mean so severe that he is popping pills at the rate of Tic Tacs. And the director makes the point of showing that brain is so careful not to leave any traces, paying with coins from a cloth and changing modes of transportation to loose any potential tails. Yet, still the guy is always right next to the murders, doesn't use gloves and leaves prints everywhere, makes the money drops in a parking lot with cameras (why?), the point being that clearly the character and script have not been developed very far. The best example of this are the murders. They are just too much based on chance. The first murder is just silly, the idea being that in the end there is a fallen banner that covers one fifth of the marks windshield, and for some reason instead of just driving past, he gets out and pulls the banner down, which results in a window breaking and the glass killing him. The one that just made everyone in the theater laugh was a murder that used a wet cord from a kite to transmit an electronic shock to the wheelchair-bound dude. I mean the idea that someone could predict how a kite would fly in a storm and where it would land is seriously idiotic. Anyway.
The other major issue is that this group is not sympathetic. They are contract killers with no redeeming features. From an ethical point, there is no reason for the audience to root for them, and the lack of a clear enemy through out most of the movie takes a lot of the potential tension away.
So all in all, the potential is there and I must say that I personally enjoyed watching the movie, just because it was so silly and unapologetic in its stupidity (the eclipse at the end, and that road sign...), so in a way this movie would rate 1 star based on script and 10 based on premise, hence the rating of 5.