Employee of the Month

Scott Hardie: “It sucked.”

Ending spoilers ahead.

Can you sue a movie studio for giving you whiplash? This movie goes through so many twist endings, it laps itself and keeps on going. In the final act, there were not one, not two, but six twist endings. The director's last name is "ruse" so I should have known, but this is ridiculous. One single twist ending is bad enough when you have a good film on your hands: Matt Dillon works hard to get us into the head of this angry loser, and despite some abrupt changes in tone, the film ultimately works well in both its darker and lighter moments. And it has some great lines, most of them drenched in profanity. Some argue that the twist endings illuminate the philosophy of the film as explained in the voiceover narration, but me, I think they're a cop-out because the writer-director didn't have real confidence in his story; he could have told the same philosophy without the con game. And stacking twist endings upon more twist endings is like trying put out a fire with gasoline. If I docked this film a half-star for each twist I'd have to give it a negative rating, so a single measly half-star will have to do. Stop the DVD when the news reporter is explaining what happened to the hero and you've got yourself a pretty good movie.

(Footnote: I love how the DVD menu spoofs the menu for "Office Space," a film with a similar premise, right down to the mention of "P.T.S. reports.")

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