I hope you won't think that I have begun taking on airs, having sounded off in my own little way against The Jackal, but I thought your web-site reading public might want to be warned against that travesty on celluloid, Gattaca.
I am sure in Hollywood, the Director (a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy) was feted as One of the Greats. No doubt, the inmates of Hollywood can read some deep social commentary lost on we in the peanut gallery. I am sure they went on Regis & Kathie Lee and solemnly spoke about underlying social messages. It was lost on me, at any rate, and quite possibly, the loss is mine. There should be a new genre of film along side noir, adventure, comedy, etc. etc. called The Brave New World film about Life in the not-so-distant future, and Gattaca would rank up there with B.N.W., Millenium (in which the smoking interests rule the future, apparently), & 2001.
It would be painful for me to dwell on the plot-line, but if I may fall into the lingo of the kitchen, even the thinnest boullion has to have some beef in there somewhere. I can only presume that Hollywood drove a dumptruck full of money and quaaludes up to Ethan Hawke & Uma Thurman's house in return for appearing on the stage. I wonder what prompted Gore Vidal to make a brief appearance. Mr. Hawke would have peaked as an actor with Goonies (a great movie, to be sure), but for the untimely death of River Phoenix, whose roles Mr. Hawke has assumed.
Be that as it may, the upshot of this uplifting flick is that there are two classes, the "valids" with pure DNA & "invalids" with impure DNA, of which Ernest Borgnine is a member of this latter class. I fail to understand how he would allow himself to be used thus, being, no doubt, on Hollywood's A list for all his great movies including The Dirty Dozen. In this future, the slicked-back hair look is in, & the good people at VO-5 are no doubt celebrating having sold about four tons of the goo to Columbia. It made it very hard for me to tell who was who in this picture, since everyone lurked about in grey pinstripe suits and slicked back hair. I kept thinking it was a mafia picture.
At any rate, Ethan Hawke is an invalid posing as someone else with the good DNA & he goes into space, having overcome obstacles. I wish that all the people who could snooter my goals and aspirations were, in secret, family members and furtively supporting me behind the scenes. Oops, I seem to have blown away the whole movie, & unlike The Crying Game (which I have yet to see) there are no surprise endings. In short, the feel-good movie of the year! It took me two days to see it, because it got so bad after five minutes, I had to pause the reel & refresh myself by translating the Vulgate of St. Jerome into sanskrit. The great tragedy of this whole sordid affair was that Gattaca did not get returned in 24 hours, and I didn't get my $1.00 credit from Blockbusters.
I find it amazing (or not, considering that we are speaking of Hollywood hack writers) that all these Brave New World films eschew the clever ending or the surprise ending for the happy ending. Brave New World on network t.v. last month, for example, with its played-well-in-Peoria ending and so forth. Never leave 'em wanting more, seems to be the motto, unless of course the director signed a three-movie deal in which case we'll see Son of Gattaca, and Gattaca III: The Revenge.
That is all one can say. People can discourse for ages on Star Wars, Casablanca, or Double Indemnity, & bully for them. But I think in the case of Gattaca all that can reasonably be writ has been writ, although we can sum it all up as: Save your cash old boy.
-Evans
Dammit, I didn't even plan on waving my fez in the general direction of this movie, but if the one man novelty act that is Ernest Borgnine is in it, I just might have to give it a look-see, horrid review notwithstanding. If you would like to submit a review, just drop it off at gleep9@hotmail.com and I'll post it up.
All the pretty, genetically perfect people head on back to
either the movie page or the
main page.
Get your own Free Home Page