Great Film overall

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Series of events are unfolded in reverse, only to teach that, despite the initial apparent disappointment (a seemingly wrong man got his brains bashed in in a lovely scene which would be brutally satisfying if the target was right), and that a high class girl got apparently unjustly raped, we learn that in fact justice has been done after all. The murdered man was worthless, and the one who got away was in fact macro wise gay who actually and justly got an oversexed snobs privileged face remastered, to fit internal ugliness. A brutal, but honest way of checking white privilege. The two perverts at the beginning and the other two during the film got their privilege checked too - impotent frenchman got to go to prison after proving his masculinity with a little help of fire extinguisher, while ratbrained high class junkie got away with just his hand broken. Such is cosmic justice, and it is good.

Film Review: "Irreversible" (2002) - Taking on a bizarre approach of mixing conceptions of "Eyes Wide Shut" (1999) and "Memento" (2000) to make this picture work for itself in casting real-life married couple Monica Bellucci & Vincent Cassel to portray two Parisian middle class people, Alex & Marcus, going out for party at their friend's. Director Gaspar Noé, frequent guest in Cannes Film Festival's competition since his first feature "I Stand Alone" (1998), polarizes the 55th edition of Cannes with his also originally written film "Irreversible".The editorial intervenes scene by scene in reverse story-telling, exposing one night in Paris for the couple Alex & Marcus, who got separated over a minor dispute to fatal consequences for both characters, which all-time controversial representation of urban underpath rape of the character of Alex, who has not been prepared for a predator of the Parisian underworld with a free path of finishing his business of leaving behind the empty shell of Alex.Director Gaspar Noé gives his main characters no chance of conciliation, seeking no balance nor preaches any mercy that film becomes downhill and out experience, which nevertheless shares some over-stylish camera motions by Cinematographer Benoît Debie and honest acting by the at times over-enthusiastic couple Bellucci & Cassel, who hardly stand a chance to come full circle with their characters of an otherwise weak-on-suspense script that lives from the sensation-mongering violent explosions at the beginning plus the previously mentioned storyline's climatic scene, which at today's standards needed metal objects pushed into human flesh, blood on snow white skin and a limping rapist to come close to even with the audience.What is left of a so-called scandal film of the year 2002 is another acting couple after Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor in "Who's Afraid of Virgina Wolf" (1966), Tom Cruise & Nicole Kidman in "Eyes Wide Shut" (1999) and then the not-as-close to a classic considered "Irreversibel", where only a "Memento" (2000) copycat gimmick of telling the story backwards saves the picture from a total fall-out due to cliché-striving screenplay of expected relationship quarrels following into one false move of carelessness, which should have been just taking the cab for woman in an evening dress to get home at night.© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

I bought Irreversible out of curiosity as media colleagues of mine always bang on about it. I've seen some violent films in my time, and always try to keep an open mind. For example the film 'Funny Games', the original version is as brutal as it gets. Throughout this film you can identify with the 2 culprits and you learn about why they behave so brutally. You are brought into their world, whether you like it or not. Within Irreversible, In some ways you can identify with Alex and Marcus, you may like them,you may not,or you just don't feel anything. Out of all the characters in the film, I didn't like Marcus for some reason, are we supposed to think he is to blame for the brutal the attack on Alex ? The rest of the film just left me numb and bored. By the end all I could think was, what's the point ? Most of the male Characters are assholes, all the women are treated like objects, even Marcus treats Alex like a piece of meat. I just felt it was trying to be shocking without any real point or subject matter. The pitch bend LFO during the club attack scene was grating and distracting. It just seemed to be there for the sake of it. I'm a composer and sound designer. I personally felt it didn't fit in with the rest of the film. There was little if any music elsewhere, and the film was more like a screenplay. Over one night 3 people's lives changed forever, all we really know about the characters are one was a beautiful woman, one of them drank and took drugs as well as treated his girlfriend badly, the 3rd person asked weird questions about people's sex lives whilst appointing himself protector of women. Violence for the sake of it without really exploring any purpose. Maybe that was the whole point ? In order to somehow be shocking, when actually it lacked substance. I was bored and nearly turned the film off.

I often wonder if the crew and the actors ever tell the director this is crap mate,still I guess they wouldn't get there pay packet at the end of the week.OK lets get on with the movie.Starts of with the credits that couldn't be read seemed to go on for ages ,once that finished all I could think of they gave the camera to an apprentice who hadn't quite managed to hold it steady yet,if you suffer with vertigo give the begging or the end a miss.Thats the end of my review because I never watched any more.David