Review of Jarring

Jarring (2009)
1/10
Gave me a headache
21 October 2013
Warning: Spoilers
A very interesting premise, absolutely awful execution.

A series of disturbing phone messages is the main plot device, but I couldn't make heads-or-tails out of anything else.

Day shots are interspersed with night shots; some are from the present, some are from the past (I think); snippets of film showing people walking out of a fenced-in area pop out of nowhere. Our heroes run out of gas and encounter an ominous gas-station attendant who won't accept big bills; the next shot shows them walking a deserted road at night and nearly being hit; suddenly, they're back driving.

Two lady-dates suddenly go missing, forcing our heroes to search for them. Every now and then, the movie cuts to some sort of dark, dank chamber, featuring someone in a Ku Klux Klan-like mask; when the mask comes off, that person is wearing a gas mask beneath it. Occasionally, both of the missing girls are shown. I have no idea who was wearing the mask(s) or why.

Meanwhile, a social-justice agency is trying to find a "real" killer so someone on death row will be freed.

At the end, it appears that everyone in the movie has been filming a master's thesis, so none of it really happened. Except the social justice agency is still on the trail...of somebody. I think. And the death-row rider's petition for a stay-of-execution is rejected, and then moments later accepted.

Then the killer leaves one last message, hits the "delete" key--and the credits roll.

Through it all, other characters just seem to wander in and out for no discernible reason.

I really tried following the "story," but the script and the movie itself seemed to have been run through a blender.

The only bright spot in it (for me) was Nicky Castellano, who reminded me very much (in appearance and performance) of Helen Hunt.

Avoid this one.
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