Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Great Film overall

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

This German set remake of a French erotic thriller, lacks little of Brian De Palmas's visual flourishes apart from one ballet set scene.Christine (Rachel Adams) is an advertising executive in the fashion world in Germany who is angling for a big promotion at her firm's New York office. She has taken credit of her assistant's ideas, Isabelle (Noomi Rapace) and the promotion is all but guaranteed. However this is now in jeopardy when Isabelle impresses her bosses with a social media campaign that goes viral.So mutual jealousy at work spills over to their personal lives. Isabelle is having an affair with Christine's lover Dirk (Paul Anderson.) Dirk is also siphoning money from the advertising company which Christine has been covering up for.None of the characters are likable, eve Christine has casual affairs. Once her promotion is at risk, she humiliates Isabelle at every turn and when Christine is found dead, Isabelle being a prime suspect.De Palma is a long way from his glory days of The Untouchables or Carlito's Way. He is hampered by a modest budget and a script that he co-wrote. Too many times he has to fall back on dream sequences and just characters doing stupid or nasty things. For example what was that about Isabelle crashing her car into the car park columns? When Isabelle was given evidence of Dirk pilfering the company, she had enough to finish Christine off for good.The film has a lesbian subtext which is weak but works better with another character but it still comes across as misguided.

It's got an American director and two US stars, so I think we can call this an American film, regardless of the fact that it says French/German production in the credits. With that said, I have to once again make a plea to US film makers to stop remaking European (and Asian) films if they can't make a film as good or better than the original. I appreciate that some directors try to do something creative with the original material, but it still has to have competent direction and acting. The actress playing the head of the firm was awful compared to the original's actress, and the same thing goes for the other lead. DePalma's rewriting of the plot was pretty sad also, although the addition of a lesbian sub-plot worked out alright, but not for dramatic purposes. The fact that Donaggio's score was very well performed once again proved the fact that even an excellent score can't save a bad movie.

Why? Anybody can explain how this mind-boggling, brain-eating, sense- devoid, style-galore, acting-non-existent, dross galore, vapid, cloudy, senseless, silly, corny, dud, stupid joke of a film ever made it onto big screen? De Palma was never my favorite, here he proved to be The epitome of a terrible bad tats once again. Acting? I love both gorgeous Rachel McAdams and Noomi Rapace, they're sweet, cute. talented ladies. Here - no acting, no style, no deep feelings, no nothing. They play so unbelievably bad that my jaw dropped. The plot? Nothing. Just many good settings and no action, no suspense, no tempo, no twists, no real idea. It seems that the script was being written just in course of making the film and thus it delved into some idiotic hues of comedy, thriller, some vapid erotica and some silly long, overblown frames with long look into the camera, false pretensions and senile jokes. Erotica? Nope, even such two beautiful ladies did not attract us here, they are both cold, stiff, playing like amateur teens on a prom night. Music? The worst case just like when something kinda tragic is about to occur, a loud burst of pathetic strings goes Booom! Bah-baaah! Silly. This is probably The worst film I saw in 15 years, I feel so miserable and also wanna laugh - wow, such awful blobs still happen. Never watch this. Never.

Not too sure where to begin on this one. Once you get into the second half of the film you can really start to feel the DePalma aspects kick into gear. The camera-work is great as is expected. The only problem is that all of the split/screen and POV shots have already been done before and done better by DePalma himself nonetheless. Even the film itself is basically another variation of many of DePalma's earlier works, and again the downside to this is that he has done nearly everything in this film so much better in the past that it makes it even harder to appreciate any of the positive aspects of this film. Also doesn't help that the first half of the film is almost un-watchable in every way. Bad acting, bad writing, bad lighting, bad movie. With all of that said I am still a sucker for any and all of the old DePalma camera tricks and will always enjoy them even if I can't enjoy the rest of the film.