Review of Man on Wire (2008) by Richards — 26 Feb 2009

I don't understand why people like this movie at all. The best I can think of is that it involves some kind of symbolic recoding of the WTC event of 2001. I thought the movie was overwrought and that everyone in it seemed stupid.

I was not surprised when one of the accomplices said his memory was foggy because he used to smoke too much pot; they all talk like pot-heads. This film is like an exercise in mind control; you have these lunatics histrionically telling you how amazed you're supposed to be and then they don't give you anything to be amazed at.

If the tone had been less strident, it would have been a better film. In fact, I feel that the filmmaker's tendency to blow up every detail out of proportion deflates any value that might be inherent in this dumb story.