We went to see Brian's celluloid debut this past weekend and although it was thrilling to know I might see his face splashed up next to Christian Bale's at any moment, it was a bit of a disappointment. If you're not familiar with Verner Herzog's work then it might be difficult to explain my reservations about the final product, but if you are? 'Nuff said. He's not my favourite writer or director and although I think he has great cinematic vision, he is still, at the end of the day, German in his approach to humour and dialogue. Brian had told me in Thailand when he came home from the set that the dialogue was poor but we had hoped that with a little bit of "hollywoodizing" it would come off better than what he had witnessed on set. It didn't. The story itself was Herzog's pet project and so the film was fairly low budget to begin with. The acting was good but like any Herzog film I've ever seen (with Grizzly Man being the best/worst example) this film was always just a little bit off. The character development was inconsistent and incomplete and I didn't understand the motivations of the main characters let alone the minor ones and I left feeling extremely frustrated that many of their stories were left untold. For all I know they could still be living in the jungle.
Brian didn't really make the cut although you could make him out if you knew where to look. And I saw the back of his head loom large at one point.
I'm glad I went though and at the end of the day I can't lose sight that the reason we did was to see Bri's movie and to remember what a kick it was for him to be in Thailand on the set of a Hollywood movie, no matter how weird it turned out.
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