Review of He Was a Quiet Man (2007) by Brian M — 09 Apr 2008

OFFICE SPACE on crack. It's a dark comedy where anything that can happen does happen, but it's also very serious in its subject matter. Christian Slater's best performance since the mid '90s.

He's Milton with a gun instead of a stapler. But he becomes the hero when a coworker beats him to the punch. He was on the verge of going over the deep end and now things are going his way. Well, there's some definite foreshadowing if you catch the scene with the matchstick.

The ending might confuse you at first, but I think it shows, especially in the last minute and a half, how his mind works and the importance of Venessa in his daily life. There was an alternate ending which definitely fleshed out how Venessa makes an impact on Bob.

I have no preference to either ending; they're both good. I think the reason this movie didn't get a bigger sendoff was because it premiered the day after the massacre at Virginia Tech. Maybe we wouldn't have tragedies like that if the crazies used this movie as a how-to guide.

In the commentary, Frank Cappello says it best, "If you're not happy here... just don't take us with you." Oh, and the boobs in Elisha Cuthbert's love scene are stunt boobs... sad, but true.