Rope (1948)
2008-02-02
My main problem with it thought was that I just could not get over the fact that someone like Philip would never have been talked into such a thing in the first place. The whole character of Philip still struck me as wrong. Brandon was a sociopath, manipulating others at the party, and his motives were fairly clear. Inspired by Rupert's philosophy, he acted on impulses that had existed his whole life. But Philip... a timid pianist, ashamed of choking chickens, was somehow talked into murder... without a plan no less, and just went along with it? There was a disconnect there for me. But overall, it just seemed very implausible. The overacting of the main players and the lame duck climax didn't help either. This is touted as one of Hitchcock's best... and the continuous shots were impressive... but I felt didn't really add much to the movie. It would have benefited from some editing.
There were elements of the movie that I liked, for instance, Brandon Shaw seems to me to pretty much be a prototype for Patrick Bateman. I respect that this piece was probably very ahead of it's time and considered "edgy" when it came out, and I'm not blind to the post war themes of anti-fascism... but I found the movie lacking in a few key areas. 6/10
Labels: review
posted by pureevilmatt @ 20:13,
