Rudderless

Shocking prequel to Frank which does manage to properly explain why he wears that mask.

Rudderless showed some promise, but it squandered much of its potential by being emotionally deceitful and manipulative. When the twist comes, you think on the way the film kept its secrets from you, not on how it impacts the story or alters your perception of its characters and their actions. And with it being such an important aspect to the story being told, that robs Rudderless of much of its power.

#18#, exp3, rw2, story, cast

To my own surprise, I did not enjoy the film. I really cannot pinpoint what made me dislike this film, though. On a somewhat related note, music was not good enough for a film like this.

Great little film.

William H. Macy directed his first movie, folk-singing dramedy geared towards a film festivals crowds. Rudderless is the title of the film, and it's just so dull and purposeless that its title sums it up better than I could.

This film could have been so much more, save for chickenshit storytelling that left a bunch of potentially interesting threads unexplored. Not shabby though, thanks to the lead cast, and not thanks to Selena Gomez, who is absolutely horrid.

Nothing too special. Cute story but the writing is just a bit too hokey and underwhelming for it to be taken too seriously. Crudup is great, as always, and is really the only bright spot in this film, but his performance alone can't save this mostly mediocre film. There are some good original songs here provided by Clem Snide front man, Eef Barzelay. Starts slow, gets a little better towards the end with a nice twist.

This could have been a decent, understated drama, but a lot of extraneous elements like a pointless comic relief character and a twist that only exists to mess with the audience takes away from the core of the movie.