Patrick Ogle
  • History and Current Events
  • An Explanation
  • Movies I have seen recently
  • Paintings & Other Art
  • My Witty Observations (Humor)

Safety Not Guaranteed May Not Wow But It Does Entertain

6/27/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
Safety Not Guaranteed is a nice little indie film.

The acting is fine, it moves along well and you really want to like the characters.  There is an aging party boy journalist, an intern who cannot even get a side job at an Olive Garden-like restaurant, another computer geek intern who is only an intern because it will make him look “well rounded” on grad school applications. There is even a brief appearance by a sexy boss you want to a) smack or b) see naked.

Oh and there is another guy who thinks he can travel in time.

This isn’t a big film to watch or in conception. It is “little”. You want to like the characters, you kind of know who they are but there isn’t a great deal of back-story. That is likely a good thing. If director, Colin Trevorrow, had aimed for back story on one? He’d have had to do it for others too and the film would grind to a painful halt (or worse a series of such halts). The film does what it has to but doesn’t take a lot of chances.  This professionalism makes an utter failure of the film unlikely but this same safe approach also means the film doesn’t wow.


Whether you like this movie might well depend on how you feel about movies; do you only care if the movie is entertaining while you are sitting there or do you want to be thinking about it after the credits roll? If the former is you then you Safety Not Guaranteed may be up your alley. If you have to have the latter probably not.

This isn’t to say this is a dumb film; it is just a modest one with modest aims. It isn’t supposed to be Citizen Kane or Inception.  The film also isn’t perfect and you are left with a little bit of a hollow feeling. But that hollow feeling is part of what makes the film work. Some people may go off to some great adventures while others, whose “success” seems certain wind up disappointed.  There is no great tragedy or drama here. It all comes off as an odd little slice of life. That is perfectly ok.

On the amusing front the film also seems to irritate blowhards. During the previews a gentleman bellowed loudly, and with authority, that “Leonard DiCaprio is WAY too young to play Gatsby!” (proving only that he’d never read the book). Same guy got up during the credits to loudly announce, at a similar volume, “That is the worst movie I have seen in a long time!”

Any filmmaker who can get a reaction like that out of a nitwit can be fairly sure they have achieved something.

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Movies

    I don't think of these as "reviews." they may seem like it sometime but they are more just...impressions.

    Categories

    All
    2014 Best Picture Nominee
    Action
    American
    Animated
    Belgian
    British
    Chile
    China
    Comedy
    Documentary
    Drama
    Egypt
    French
    German
    Horror
    Independent
    Indonesian
    Iranian
    Irish
    Italy
    Lebanese
    Science Fiction

    Picture

    Archives

    February 2020
    October 2017
    October 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010

    RSS Feed