Film Noir

Film Noir is an entertaining action mystery that I really enjoyed.

It is interesting for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the broad range of surprising reactions reviewers had to it.

For example, one reviewer says the world never looks believable - yet the cityscapes used are actually filmed, so is reality itself. Others say the animation is amateurish, whereas I thought it was quite well done.

As a fan of comics and animation from way back, I enjoy animations that are unique and characteristic, even if it is a little less than perfect in some aspects. In fact, the lack of "realism" is the whole point of animation and comics - it is art, and the more unique the better.

As for the story, again there are conflicting opinions - one reviewer calls it unique, but I thought it was a mix of so many clichéd plot devices that it would be laughable if you thought about it too much.

Yet the writer does a great job of making something entertaining and reasonably unique from the grab-bag of clichés. He has spun it, wrapped it in noir and set it in a modern context. This is daring and well done considering the genre usually works best with the look and feel of 60+ years ago.

Being an animation is the saving grace and the most entertaining part of this movie. If this was done with live actors it would be so unbelievable as to be laughable and hopelessly B grade; but as an animation, it's easy to allow it to be over the top.

Because of this I settled into the story and quickly let the animation be what the animators and script writers tried to make it, a noir flick with all the elements of the classics spun into a modern day action/mystery/drama. As such it did its job well. What would have failed as a film worked as an animation and I enjoyed the ride. In fact the story had me genuinely surprised once or twice, before resolving the plot twists nicely and at a good pace.

So what of the plot? Well, let's just say a main character with amnesia has been done so often it's not just old, its dead with bleached white bones. But this storyline is not going away any time soon - it's just too darn compelling, and nothing beats it as a kick-starter for getting straight into the action. To come up with some other reason for a protagonists confusion would waste too much time in set up, so you might as well just accept amnesia once again and go along for the ride.

The trade-off of course is that you get quickly into the character's head - and as you share his confusion, you share his thrill ride, too... and this story does provide quite a thrill ride! The main character has to investigate meager clues to find himself, all the while while suffering unexpected dangers, with every revelation brings him one step closer to the invisible monkey on his back. Does he get out alive..? Well I won't spoil it for you, but the expectations of a story like this are well know - dangerous, sexy hard-edged entertainment. For me, Film Noir delivers.

Overall, I enjoyed Film Noir - it kept me genuinely engaged - I did not want to be disturbed while watching it. It is a gritty noir mystery with lots of sex, plot twists, ugliness and violence, but done it a way that was not too gratuitous, and as a result I enjoyed the ride and had a lot of adult fun along the way. To me it's a solid 8/10 and I'd happily watch it again.

Although the initial minutes of the movie very much put you in a film noir atmosphere, I felt the plot quickly shyed away from that and turned into a rather disappointing action movie. Basically the movie tries to do both noir and action at once, and although both genres aren't exactly mutually exclusive, there is obviously a limited specter of action that the noir atmosphere can tolerate without being ruined. I felt like that specter was definitely breached here.

The plot has a few interesting twists although a lot of short cuts are used to move it along, leaving a sour taste behind. However it also has predictable and very disappointing choices scattered throughout, which is harder to forgive.

As for the animation per se, I didn't put too much thought into it, it felt alright although it was far from stellar.

So basically this is an okay movie, I wouldn't run away nor towards it, if you happen to pass by it on a boring night and the right mood, go for it.

I was into the story from the moment it began...not an easy accomplishment for an animated film. It manages to do the LA police/detective/murder story without lapsing into clichés. In fact, complex twists and turns in the plot keep you involved. Just when you think you have it figured out, you're hit with another sharp left turn. Loved the mix of murky film with animation. I recognized classic Hollywood landmarks. The art direction never gets dull. Angles are unexpected and animated effects are great. Great music by Keller, his first attempt at scoring a picture. He also is the voice of the main character. And the sex scenes.....animation is able to leave just enough to the imagination...it's better than a lot of filmed sex.

Made by a small crew of Yugoslavian animators, "Film Noir" is a low budget animated film given a limited release in 2007.

The film opens with our noir hero coming to consciousness under the famous Hollywood sign. He finds a gun in his hand and the corpse of a dead LA policeman at his side. We quickly realise that our protagonist is amnesic. He has no memory, no idea who he is, what happened and why he killed this police officer. Desperate for answers, he drives to the house of Rodney, an address and name which he finds on a small slip of paper. Problem is, Rodney is the name of the cop he just murdered. What's worse, Rodney is being thrown a surprise birthday party by the entire LA police force.

Five minutes into the film and the audience is hooked. With its rain swept cityscapes, jazzy soundtrack, hardboiled characters and lush narration, this is a film completely in love with all the signifiers of noir. It's an onslaught of aesthetics, the film creating a cosy space which half exists on screen and half exists in your imagination. The film trawls a pop-culture past, absorbing noir clichés, signifiers and details and then spitting them back out at us as a series of referentials. The title itself, the unimaginative "Film Noir", lets us know that this is an embodiment of all things noir. But more than that, it is a perverse continuation of noir. It's noir taken to its logical end point.

Like "Sin City" this is self-conscious pop noir, but unlike "Sin City" it is genuinely sleazy and genuinely exploitative. Distributed by the French, filmed in English and animated by Serbians, the film is filled with gratuitous nudity, relishes its B movie plot and our hero is always ready to drop his pants for a quick bout of sex. Like "Sin City", the femme fatales have also all been reduced to leather clad dominatrixes, sluts and fetish objects, but while Robert Rodriguez balked at having Jessica Alba writhe her body in the nude, director Jud Jones is not afraid to push his film into more perverse territory.

Hollywood is obsessed with consuming itself and spitting out "corrected" copies, desperately seeking a kind of perfect representation of a past image. Noir, like the action genre, is evolving toward a spandex clad form of pornography, where every familiar prop, line and character is fetishized, aestheticized and turned into a signifier; one noir film after the next, each trying to get closer to some intangible hyper-reality, the violence harder, the sex sexier, the dialogue thicker, the shadows darker, the rain wetter.

Such hyper-reality used to be hard to approach, but now with CGI, animation and modern SFX, we can get closer to, not a truth, but a familiar lie.

For about half an hour, "Film Noir", like "Saving Private Ryan", is brilliant with its hyper-atmospherics. It immerses us in its noir world, every movement, sound and action super calculated...but after half an hour of cinematic masturbation, it explodes into a frenetic ejaculation of easy violence, pointless sex and dumb action scenes.

The tease is gone, the promise is undelivered and instead, like the fantasies of a juvenile imagination, we're left with humanity at it's most base: sex, violence and easy blood lust. This is your payoff. Take it or leave it, we already have your money.

6/10 - Watch the first 30 minutes and then switch off. Or watch the whole thing and mock "Sin City" for lacking guts.

Although it's a bit tough, 'amateurish' is the best word to describe this film. The plot is very common, the characters are not original at all and the animation is so bad it hurts. The animation actually ruins every good aspect of the movie, whatever little exists. Some objects look realistic and the character animation is fluid, but it never looks natural and so the characters seem fake, like (very) bad actors. Every action scene is also ruined by unrealistic movements and horrible explosion effects. at no point does the world look believable.

As an homage to the noir genre it doesn't do much either, as it simply takes some plot ideas from a few popular noir films and mixes them together in a rushed way.

In a few words: don't waste your time on this!