Friday, October 27, 2017

Movie Review: "Suburbicon"


In terms of pedigree, "Suburbicon" has everything going for it.  Produced and written by the Coen Brothers, directed by George Clooney (who co-produced and co-wrote it as well), and a couple of attractive stars in Matt Damon, Julianne More, and Oscar Isaac, this is a flick that had "I can't wait to see it" written all over it.

Let me get right to the point.  This is one of the most unpleasant movies that I have seen in a long, long time.  And I knew ten minutes into it that it was going to be that way.  If I was watching this on television at home, rather than having spent my own greenbacks at the theater, I'd have quickly grabbed the remote and switched to HGTV.

The movie starts as a satire on suburban conformity in the 1950's, takes a turn as a commentary on racial prejudices of that same era (which sadly, still exist out there today), then takes an even sharper turn into home invasion, infidelity, murder for hire, and insurance fraud.  Any single one of these trails could have produced a good and entertaining flick, but the way this one was put together produced something that was all together completely unpleasant.  Yes, that is the second time that I have used that word to describe this one, but it is the most effective one that I can come up with to summarize this movie.

This movie has produced some advance buzz among the film festival crowd and critics, probably due to that aforementioned pedigree, and while I have seen no reviews as yet, critics will no doubt rave about the acting, writing, cinematography, editing and its other technical aspects, and they may well be correct, but when it all adds up to a totally, and here's that word again, folks, unpleasant viewing experience, that makes it a bad movie in my book.

I'll give this movie one star, solely for the performance of Julianne Moore, and solely for one specific scene when she is being interviewed by insurance investigator Isaac.

Save your money and skip this one, folks.  Don't even spend a buck and a half when this one comes to the Redbox.

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