Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Tim Robbins | ... | David Owen | |
Bridget Moynahan | ... | Helen Owen | |
William Hurt | ... | Mayor Schneer | |
Margarita Levieva | ... | Ekaterina Filippovna | |
Gabrielle Brennan | ... | Chris Owen | |
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María Ballesteros | ... | Gruska |
William Baldwin | ... | Mayor's Chief of Staff | |
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Eric L. Abrams | ... | Security Cop #1 (as Eric Lenox Abrams) |
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Jessica Almasy | ... | Crackpot Anarchist |
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Leora Barish | ... | Tiny Juror |
Michael J. Burg | ... | Judson | |
Colleen Camp | ... | Mrs. Broomell | |
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Louis Carbonneau | ... | Officer Moretti (as Lou Carbonneau) |
Chuck Cooper | ... | Judge Gibson | |
Catherine Curtin | ... | Barbara |
In long flashbacks, David Owen looks back to when he lived in Manhattan with his wife and baby. The unnecessary noises of the city interrupt his life to the point that he takes a baseball bat to the windshield of cars whose alarms are blaring. After a few arrests, his wife kicks him out. On his own, he learns to avoid arrest and leaves a calling card as "The Rectifier" when he breaks into an offending car. Gruska, an enterprising young reporter, tracks him down. He tells her his story, they become lovers, and she organizes a petition drive for a ballot initiative to ban car alarms. The mayor becomes the Rectifier's bête noire. Can David fight City Hall and win? Written by <jhailey@hotmail.com>
I've been using IMDb for a few years now, but have never written any reviews before. However, this movie so disappointed me (even with a modest score of 6.4 at the time of writing) that I couldn't keep quiet anymore.
Noise is the story of a New Yorker (Tim Robbins)who is so perturbed by noise pollution that he takes on an alter-ego as a as a vigilante, "The Rectifier", and vandalizes any cars he finds with a car-alarm sounding.
I take the name of the movie to be somewhat of a misnomer. Although there are one or two instances of other sources of noise being addressed or mentioned, the only true focus of our protagonist is car alarms. Car alarms, car alarms, car alarms. There is really no other focus. When the movie tries to tie other examples of noise pollution to the problem of car alarms, it seems to be just thrown in to give merit to the actions of Robbins' character.
Yes, we're all annoyed by noise. Nobody likes the sound of car alarms. Of course we all have that internal urge to take a baseball bat to a shrieking vehicle, and this movie uses that fact, and pretty much that fact alone, to sell this movie. I say 'pretty much' because there is also a blatantly contrived sexual relationship (including a completely needless threesome) which is obviously thrown in for those movie-goers who need such things thrown in in order to enjoy a movie. Honestly, it's eye-rolling.
Robbin's character, very shortly into the movie, becomes completely unrelatable. It seems less that he decides not to put up with the noise anymore, and more that by focusing so much on the noise he has begun to lose his sanity. The first half of the movie is essentially the story of how he turns from just an angry, car-bashing dude into this hero of the little guy, The Rectifier. However... the transformation doesn't take place. He just renames himself.
I could go on for a while. Annoying generalized social commentary comes in every now and then to add to the pretentiousness of the movie, and the self-satisfied smirk which never quite leaves Robbins face doesn't help either.
Overall, I think it's very obvious what this movie is trying to be, as it's pretty much shoved down your throat, but in my opinion, it fails in a big way. Just one guy's opinion, cheers.