Disappointing to me

I hated Mamet's writing and direction on this one. Which was surprising to me, because I've liked or loved most of the other films he's written or directed that I've seen, although I certainly haven't seen them all; I've seen maybe half of them.

I should also clarify that I hated his writing on a fine-grained scale here--the dialogue, and the way a scene would develop. On a much broader scale, I think the film had some good ideas, and unlike most other folks who didn't like the film, the reasons I didn't like it weren't that it wasn't more stereotypically "Hollywood" (whether those folks are saying that in so many words or not).

Rather, I thought the dialogue sounded awkward and oddly unnatural coming out of every actor's mouth. To me, everyone said and did arbitrarily odd things, with odd timing. Everything seemed like acting, and amateurish at that--almost like I was watching audition tapes of people who had never acted before, who were trying too hard, who were reading the lines because they hadn't memorized them yet, and who weren't very good readers. I don't blame the actors for any of that, I blame Mamet, because I've seen most of these actors in other films where I didn't get that impression at all--I'm a fan of Ejiofor, Mortimer, Allen, Paymer, Mantegna, etc. Here, everyone seemed to be doing this on purpose, and I can only assume because that's what Mamet coaxed out of them as a director.

I almost didn't stick with the film very long because of this. At one point I would have given it a 2/10. Once the plot developed a bit more, however--which only took about an hour--I was more interested, although still consistently annoyed on that fine-grained level. I ended up giving the film a 4/10.

I can only hope that Mamet's next turn in the director's chair much more resembles State and Main, which I loved and recommended to family and friends who also liked it, than Redbelt, which I wouldn't recommend to any of them for fear of losing their friendship.


Is everyone in this house a total nutzoid or is it just me?