Barry Lyndon. Barry Fucking Lyndon. Oh, how I hated this film.
Stanley Kubrick is a master filmmaker. I am not denying that. "2001"
is beyond superb. "Dr. Strangelove" is blackly hilarious.
"Eyes Wide Shut" is even better than I thought it was upon a first viewing.
But Barry Lyndon?
It's shit. And I say that with all respect to the talents of the late
Stan Kubrick. He was a master, sometimes a genius with a camera and
a script. But here. Well, I don't know what the hell happened. Rarely
has a filmmaker this good made something that sucked this bad.
Really, it's that horrid. It's a pile of goat feces with monkey urine
lovingly frosted atop it.
Halfway through the movie I wanted to turn it off, but Jones said:
"We made it this far, we're not pussying out now!" and I
had to consent to him. After all, it was his house and his DVD Player.
But I couldn't have made it through this worthless piece of dreck
had I not been making fun of it every frame of the way.
The movie starts well: there is a duel and two men shoot at each other.
One is shot dead and I laughed for reasons I'm not exactly sure of. A better film might
have used my laugh as a springboard for involving me in the film and
would have went from there. This one starts from there and then stays
about the same for a half an hour. Barry falls in love with a woman
who everyone in his shire has had a go at. So does some British prick.
Barry and the British prick engage in a duel. The prick loses and
Barry leaves town, fearing repurcussions.
So far, so good. Okay, not bad. No "2001", but I have seen
worse.
But it doesn't last long. Barry joins a war. Barry goes AWOL. Barry
schtupps a totally hot German babe. All of this could have been good.
But it isn't here. Barry is a moron and a bad actor. Ryan O'Neal has
but one facial expression. When he cried over the loss of his comrade,
I didn't buy it. I didn't buy him at any point in the movie and, thus,
I didn't care. As the movie goes on, and gets more boring with every
subsequent frame, (Oh Sweet Jesus of Nazareth is this movie DULL!!!!!!!!)
you don't care what happens to Barry. Near the end, when Barry is
involved in a duel with his stepson, we root for the son. We want
Barry's head on a block. Just for acting this lame, he deserves to
die.
But does Barry die? Hell No! That might actually be interesting. That
might actually validate our waste of three hours of our lives! No.
He gets shot in the LEG!!! The fucking LEG!!!
What the hell is with this shit? He cries because he will lose his
leg, but it doesn't make him any more interesting. He's the same boring,
bad-acting son of a bitch, just minus a leg. He can die. Ryan doesn't
suck this bad in other movies. He was good in "The Zero Effect".
He was fine in "What's Up Doc?" (a movie that manages to
entertain despite the fact that Ryan and Barbara Streisand are in
it). But here I wished him a gory death. Or, at least, his character.
You can predict everything that will happen in this movie. In a movie
like "The Replacements",
the predictability satisfies you because it is what you want to happen.
Here, it pisses you off because it is exactly what you expect of a
crappy movie.
Don't watch this movie. For the love of God, don't befoul your eyes
with this garbage. Please don't! I am begging you, don't make the
same mistake that Jones and I did. I'm sure that he will tell you
the same. Trust me. This is bad stuff. It's the most boring film I
have ever seen. I am getting sleepy just thinking about it. You can't
even tell that Kubrick did this movie. There is only one cool shot.
There are no uses of cool editing and the narration is actually an
embarassment to cinema. Comparing this movie to dogshit is an insult
to dogshit.
Barry Fucking Lyndon.
