Review of Intermission (2003) by Ryan M — 14 Dec 2004

I'm a visual person, and I feel there really should be an intermediate visual between Rotten and Fresh Tomatoes like maybe a Tomato with a worm in it or a Tomato with some brown spots. There are plenty of middle of the road movies out there that aren't quite worthy of being Fresh, but aren't quite rotten either.

Intermission would fall into this category. I wouldn't necessarily call it a good movie, but it's not bad either. I was impressed by the way director John Crowley was able to maintain a somewhat coherent storyline despite having so many interwoven characters.

The problem with most ensemble pieces is that the characters tend to get lost in the mix. I was intrigued by the way Crowley was able to develop each character enough to make them interesting, even though I think he could have sacrificed a couple of the more minor characters to make some of the others richer.

I thought the acting was very good, which is typical of European films, but be warned that you might want to use the subtitle option because the Irish accents are so sharp, especially Colin Farrell, that it's often hard to understand what's being said.

The fabric of the film itself involves many characters involved in seperate storylines, that as the film plays out, slowly approach and tie into a more central story revolving around an attempted robbery.

The multiple storylines are fairly engaging, and at times very funny with very witty dialogue, especially in relation to Sally the moustache girl. Intermission isn't a movie probably everyone will like, but I thought it was interesting and worthy of a rental.