There is nothing insightful about this film. This is not Taxi Driver, this is not Good Will Hunting, this is not any sort of intelligent.
The knock on this film is the confusing, too many character, twisty turn plot. I would disagree. The movie has a heavy amount of hard-to-follow dialogue, yes. The film has a ridiculous amount of characters that contribute to the plot, sure. There is an infinitely confusing story ache that takes on a new rising action seemingly every 5 minutes. There are resolutions, more problems, conflicts, climaxes, and more conflicts all happening at once.
The movie is, indeed jumbled up and a complete mess. Absolute train wreck. BUT, one film that I can remember being an absolute mess as well is The Usual Suspects. I'm sure pretty much everyone who ever watched that film was lost at one point, but the beauty of that film is how everything gets drawn together for a fitting ending.
Inherent Vice had a mediocre blend of comedy and suspenseful mystery, that lead to an ultimately disappointing ending. Having sat through The Usual Suspects and been rewarded with a great ending, I endured the ever too lengthy runtime of Inherent Vice in hopes of a mind-blowing ending...and nothing.
For a film that gets so jumbled, messy and twisty, there seems to be no over-arching resolution with a very weak ending. There was just too much going on and it seemed like the writers just needed to wrap it up after a couple hours. The "artistic" parts of this film are just lost within its exhaustive characters and erroneous plot structure. I hate to say it, but perhaps Paul Anderson jumped the shark with this one. Hopefully he comes back with something much better.
The knock on this film is the confusing, too many character, twisty turn plot. I would disagree. The movie has a heavy amount of hard-to-follow dialogue, yes. The film has a ridiculous amount of characters that contribute to the plot, sure. There is an infinitely confusing story ache that takes on a new rising action seemingly every 5 minutes. There are resolutions, more problems, conflicts, climaxes, and more conflicts all happening at once.
The movie is, indeed jumbled up and a complete mess. Absolute train wreck. BUT, one film that I can remember being an absolute mess as well is The Usual Suspects. I'm sure pretty much everyone who ever watched that film was lost at one point, but the beauty of that film is how everything gets drawn together for a fitting ending.
Inherent Vice had a mediocre blend of comedy and suspenseful mystery, that lead to an ultimately disappointing ending. Having sat through The Usual Suspects and been rewarded with a great ending, I endured the ever too lengthy runtime of Inherent Vice in hopes of a mind-blowing ending...and nothing.
For a film that gets so jumbled, messy and twisty, there seems to be no over-arching resolution with a very weak ending. There was just too much going on and it seemed like the writers just needed to wrap it up after a couple hours. The "artistic" parts of this film are just lost within its exhaustive characters and erroneous plot structure. I hate to say it, but perhaps Paul Anderson jumped the shark with this one. Hopefully he comes back with something much better.