There is a line between art and business, especially in cinema. Sometimes the line is fine, sometimes it is thick, and sometimes the line is blurred beyond recognition. 'Agent Orange' is a part of a series of short films/commercials commissioned by amazon.com, which are obviously inspired by BMW's 'The Hire' series. The films feature a multitude of products available on amazon's site. At best, they are still a perversion of the art of cinema. On the other hand, Tony Scott's work with BMW in their cross-promotional effort "The Hire" is commendable. When a filmmaker has but one restriction - your film has to feature a car - the restriction is so minimal it can be a situation where a little compromise breeds creativity and originality, or on par with standard studio interference to the artistic process. I think this is very true in the case of "The Hire" - the filmmakers successfully infused original ideas and concepts into the tired car chase genre and they were able to take advantage of the rare opportunity to produce some highly-entertaining and well made short films. But when you're forced to feature a handful of products within a short few minutes, you've sold out. Shame on you Tony, this year you had a hit feature with an academy award winning actor that was well received - why in god's name would you want to do something like this? In addition, the film is very perfunctory, either as a result of the complete commercialization of the film, or that Scott merely did it for the money - it looks like a student film trying to emulate Scott's style. The disjointed editing/fast cutting technique Scott has used consistently for the past few years certainly works well in his last two films "Spy Game" and "Man on Fire" but is completely absurd in this corny romance.
Tony, you're better than this.
Tony, you're better than this.