Frantic

They've taken his wife. Now he's taking action...while Paris takes out the trash. Frantic is a story about trash and how it mirrors one American man's frustration with his impotence when it comes to solving Scooby Doo mysteries en Francais. I suppose it could have nothing to do with trash, but if there's anything I learned from my freshman class on film appreciation at university, is that when an acclaimed director puts garbage trucks in the first and last scenes of his movie, it's important.

Now that I've watched this movie, I am one line closer to deciphering the lyrics of "One Week" by Barenaked Ladies. I only need to figure out what Sailor Moon and anime are before I completely understand the entire song.

1 of those films that attempts to do what had been popular decades before - in this case, a "Wrong Man" film - & fails. Either Polanski dropped the ball or the genre hasn't aged well, but either way there's a lack of suspense & momentum. A big problem is that Ford's character is so much of an "everyman" he's generic & his search for his generic wife not very compelling. Then, Polanski throws Seigner at him, but that just muddies the stakes. If he cheats, he's a louse, so why suggest temptation?

Stop taking the roof! My God. There are no less than 56 shots of people struggling to not fall off a roof. They just keep getting up there! Man on a Wire was less tense than the fourth or fifth time they climb out there, because they're always awful at it.

Good movie and Harrison Ford is great, but ultimately it's too simplistic. I was a bit disappointed when I realized that it was in fact just a straight-forward kidnapping plot, and not something more complex and interesting. I'm not asking for a Usual Suspects-style twist at the end, just anything other than "Arab terrorists looking for a device used in nuclear missiles". I mean seriously.