Review of The Man from Nowhere (2010) by Aveek C — 24 Oct 2012

***Never Any Spoilers*** Where to even begin? I've been having a late-night love affair with this movie for over two years now. It bounced around at some shitty RT numbers for a while, but I'm pleased to see that its rating is exactly where it should be. ( I saw it pulling 70% for a bit, which isn't technically 'shitty' but, its appallingly low for the caliber of film this is. The rotten reviews seem to have disappeared, as they should, because a rotten rating on this makes you a turd. ) Sure, we've seen many of the themes of this film before in other pictures. On the surface you could piece together a lot of the story and characters from a collection of other well received films, but that is of no importance. This is heroic bloodshed at its finest, and no one has ever done it better. I shit you not, there are fight scenes in this film that could potentially put this movie in my top five for the rest of my life. I watch other fight sequences that I once held in high regard, and they have now become limp and shallow. I watch the Bourne movies and notice that the fights are so over-edited, cut and spliced together, that they have no weight. Jason Bourne punches. Cut. Enemy blocks punch. Cut. Jason pushes. Cut. Enemy grapples. Cut. Jason grabs pen. Cut. Jason's face gets serious. Cut. It's been turned to bullshit now for me. All of it. And I'm glad.

The tracking shots in this film are superb. The acting is excellent. Audio and music are top notch. The colors and brooding mood are crisp and realistic. And there are legit, samurai-like showdowns in modern settings that I have returned to so many times late at night, that I'm now afraid no other action movie will top. There are a collection of fight and action sequences that I have easily watched two hundred times, and as I watch, they evolve. They grow in intensity. I notice things I missed the first time through, then new things the first ten times through, then still the first fifty. Subtle shifts in camera angles add so much depth to the fight scenes, yet they often go unnoticed, instead sinking in at a subconscious level. Its the most cerebral way of filming action scenes that I've ever seen. Its poetry.

I'd love to dissect some of my favorite scenes more, but I'd never want to potentially ruin an inch or ounce of this film for anyone. I own on Blu Ray, but this is also available on Streaming Netflix. If you watch and agree with my remarks above, please feel free to comment. If you disagree, please comment as well. I will defend this film for the rest of my life. I am a major fan of action flicks/fight scenes, but this film has changed me. This movie is love.