Review of Not Fade Away (2012) by Pongpunya K — 21 Dec 2012

The movie was overall a good movie...until you get to the last 10 minutes, when everything that was great starts to crash and burn. The movie tries to tie in the telling of a story of a band that never makes it, rather than a band that does.

However, the story telling device is lost throughout the movie, and it flops in delivery at the end. Good acting from all the cast throughout and a great musical soundtrack made this seem like it was a going to be a great movie.

However, everyone in the screening was disappointed at the ending when the last 10 minutes told nothing about what was happening. The awkward dancing at the end by the sister (with poor green screen like effects) just left a very sour taste in my mouth.

I watched 2 hours of setting up to know that the story had way too many loose ends, and it wasn't just limited to the story of the band, but on every aspect. This left it feeling like there should have been an extra 20-30 minutes of story telling.

However, it was awkward when the main character walks off, never finds his girlfriend, we don't know if the dad dies, we don't know what happens with Grace's sister, we don't know what happens to the mom, we don't know what happens to the other band mates, and we sure as hell don't know why the sister magically appears in California to dance in the middle of the street.

Poor, poor ending to an otherwise entertaining movie (but what was it really about, I can't tell you). The studio should have screened this movie much more in advance and made necessary changes. I definitely would not have paid to go see this movie and would have been disappointed if I did pay to see it.

One star for the acting and cinematography, one star for the music. 2 stars docked for poor ending and poor overall story/plot line, 1 star off for wasting my time in telling a story that never goes anywhere (even the little things).