Review of He Was a Quiet Man (2007) by Norman C — 24 Jun 2008

Bob Maconel played by Christian Slater (with a very intriguing look..) is one of those office slaves that can not find any meaning to his life. He hates his job, he hates his colleagues and he is invisible for all social interactions. The only communication he has, is with his goldfish.

Bob is on the edge and the plan is to off his colleagues and then himself. Another coworker beats him to the point though, but Bob intervene in the killers path which saves the life of another colleague, Vanessa Parks (Elisha Cuthbert). A girl he dreamt of for a long time, but had no chance with. Bobs unplanned heroism makes him step up the corporate ladder and he also finds himself taking care of the paraplegic, but alive Vanessa.

Unfortunately, Bob can not handle that he has been given what he dreamt of, so he ends up doing what he was set out to do in the first place..

"He Was A Quiet Man" puts a light on those tragic "Co-worker went bezerk" stories, we have heard all too many times particularly from USA. People feeling misplaced, misjudged, bullied and not fitting in. And the action taken has in many cases ended very violently.

Nevertheless, the structure of "He Was A Quiet Man" is not very satisfying and there is a strange balance between comedy and tragic drama that does not work. Christian Slater is putting up good work as Bob, but Miss Cuthbert is not entirely up to scratch here. I do like her though. The dialogue is strange as well and it seems to not fit into the frame. There is as well an unbalance between the mechanics of the scenes. Some are nicely done, others are terribly done.

The idea is there, but the end result and execution could have been done better.