The Worst Film Ever

Really Surprised!

Crappy film

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Based on a Tolstoy novel, Bernard Rose's satire on the ephemera of Hollwood is filmed in the hand-held cam style of the Dogme 95 movement of the late 90's. Danny Huston plays an agent who is dead... and then we are shown how he lives and, so, dies.As in Roger Dodger we are treated to a brilliant principal performance from otherwise unknown Danny Huston with his Jack-Nicholson-Joker fixed grin crumbling as his own mortality is brought home to him with quiet diagnosis, using the same euphemism with which he works his deal-making art throughout LA. As in both films there is redemption through a mother figure; unlike Roger Dodger this is a short lived reprieve, and we know that death is the last hand that will be held out to him.The Dogme-techniques give the film a documentary feel which adds both to those scenes which, impressionistically, pan out as if on the drugs Ivan has been taking and also to the real feel of the story. We can afford a little sympathy for the shark. The use of specially 'doubly exposed' productions of the prelude and Liebestod to Wagner's Tristan und Isolde frame the picture and provide a powerful emotional momentum to these poetic and, latterly, ecstatic (xtc?) scenes. However, whilst I was impressed with the impact these made within these two episodes, they are rich oases in a viscerally anaemic film. It's all a little hard to swallow, worth the effort perhaps for its coherence and, notwithstanding the distention of the opening credit sequence and final tableaux it lean storytelling. But the story of a shark storing up wealth on earth rather than in heaven is not new, and there is not enough development of the character that is Ivan to really make one mourn his passing so much as to examine our own behaviour. 6/10

I love this film. Danny Huston, in a remarkable performance, makes you care for a truly unloveable character. The film shows us the vile antics of those charged with maintaining the glam facade of Hollywood and the big studios. Let's have more on this theme. Some on these pages think this film smacks of jealousy; that somehow Bernard Rose is envious of the morally bankrupt lives led by the likes of Ivan. He's not (how could anyone be?). When Ivan muses on his fate and tries to find one, just one, memory that would make it all worthwhile, he comes up blank. It would appear to your average punter, who's taken in by the trappings of wealth and showbiz, that Ivan had it all. In the end, we see he has nothing. His death scene is one of the most moving ever committed to celluloid, sorry, HD-V. Consider the response of his colleagues on hearing the news of his demise. Consider the response of his former clients. Those with a knowledge of the way these agencies work will know that this film is eerily accurate. There are so many shocking, uncomfortable and perversely funny scenes in this film that you'll be thinking about it for a long time afterwards. Wow, a film about Hollywood that actually makes you think. How weird is that?

This film is amazing. It begins by introducing a whole bunch of characters, including Danny Huston, none of whom have any redeeming features - scenes are frequently uncomfortable to the point of being cringe-inducing. It's when you realise that what everyone in the film is talking about is absolutely nothing or incredibly superficial to say the least is when you realise that what you're feeling is that there ARE no characters as such - they may as well be dead. They have nothing to say and when they do it's absolute worthless tosh. They are essentially characterless "characters". It's therefore impossible to feel any affinity, compassion or even empathy with anyone in the film - hence one's discomfort during viewing. And it's from this point of utter lifelessness that the film grows into one the most truly and deeply ALIVE films I've ever seen. Like one of those moments when you realise what you are when the clouds around your soul have been stripped off and you get a glimpse of your self. And it's pretty hard to put into words, but just like the guy from London who wrote the first review, my girlfriend and I were so stunned and emotionally moved into silence we didn't speak or rather just couldn't find WORDS that could justify what we'd just seen. I came out, sat in the foyer, said "what the f**k happened there?" and proceeded to smoke a cigarette knowing fine well I couldn't smoke there. (In light of the film, I think I just thought that stupid little humans' rules were often so pathetically insignificant they were laughable!) We were both absolutely amazed. But my advice is, of course, to see it yourself. Because after all, these are just words too.

The story is thin (viz., high flying Hollywood agent is diagnosed with lung cancer and dies -- no one seems bothered), none of the characters arouses any sympathy or interest, and the use of classical music (presumably to create a sense of tragedy) only adds to the bathos.Probably only comedy can do any sort of justice to what goes on behind the scenes in the film industry but the few decent comic scenes in Ivan's XTC are drowned out by the seriousness with which the film takes itself.I'm amazed the film ever got made. But then one of the industry's greatest failings is that it takes itself far too seriously, so perhaps it's not so surprising after all.