Gosford Park

SPOILERS

Dreadfully boring!! The movie portrays the reveal of who-dunnit as if you care for any of the characters but there’s just not a reason to. This movie was terrible, all the characters sucked and while the actors played them well it’s like each character was an extra in a different movie. And I don’t think these characters are unlikable, there are plenty of great unlikable characters, these characters are just there. No character grabs your attention, you think “oh maybe the movie will really focus on this character now, finally!” and then the movie ends. And they are all dumb as shit, like unbelievably dumb. I really should say they are just painfully oblivious, and maybe they are supposed to be painfully oblivious, but it makes the movie unenjoyable.

And the story, christ, it’s like Clue, if Clue wasn’t funny and made you want to die watching it. Really the whole movie is like what happens before a more interesting, better movie. The murder happens about an hour and a half in and before it nothing happens and after it, well nothing really happens.

Before the murder you are given a couple of vague clues as to who would want to murder William(the victim) but not enough to suspect that someone might want to actually kill him. I mean no one even really shows any disdain towards the man, not even an “I wish he weren’t around would make my life easier” or a joking “oh just drop dead” N O T H I N G. In fact most of the characters don’t seem to even dislike William, but then after hes dead they talk shit about him until the movie ends, even though the viewer isn’t ever given a reason to hate him enough to care he’s dead, despite the ample time the movie gives before the murder. There is no clear, justified motivation for the murder, which is the climax of the movie, until after the murder happens. This wouldn’t be a problem if the movie had the murder happen much sooner. The movie would have more time for the characters to react to the murder giving you an idea of who-dunnit based on their reactions. If I didn’t know this were a who-dunnit murder movie before watching and the murder happened, I still wouldn’t care because the characters are doodoo dogshit, I would at the very least be somewhat surprised because the movie doesn’t imply a murder might happen at all in the first half.

Actually I forgot an important scene, its the bizarrely awkward dinner for the guests. At this dinner the American producer character, Weisman I think, says his next movie will be about a murder at an English country-side gather “not too different than this one.” This is really the only thing I noticed that would raise any red flags, its so obvious though that this guy nor his fake valet would be the murderers that I kinda just thought, “okay well its not gonna be him so who cares.”

After the murder an inspector character appears, I guess hes supposed to be a comedic relief character but he is neither comedic nor relieving of any tension. Hes not funny because hes basically just a moron who doesn’t know what hes doing, which his partner the constable makes clear because he adversely is not an idiot. For example they are at the crime scene and the inspector is speaking to someone and the constable says “inspector this cup is broken” and the Inspector replies “they have people to clean that, get off the floor!” I mean, the movie isn’t fucking pink panther, like its really not funny at all before he arrives and while his lines could be funny they are so out of place they just become awkward, I think I audibly said “what, why is he so stupid?” when he said that. The Inspector isn’t very relieving either because, well there’s no tension to relieve. This murder mystery movie has no tension or excitement whatsoever. Nothing happens in this movie, nothing… nothing… nothing… oh then the murder just kinda happens and you don’t care because all the characters suck, then nothing… nothing.. nothing… find out who did it and the movie ends.

You also find out that the American producer character’s valet, Henry? maybe is his name, uh he wasn’t really Scottish like you were to think. Not only was the main-ish character Scottish so you knew what a Scot should sound like, he did a bad accent and is suspicious as fuck so you know right away. They even say he has a bad fake accent, then make nothing of it and his suspiciousness is an obvious red herring. OH and they show his pants are from Fox studios like 40 minutes in, when he kinda tries to rape the main girl for no reason, which is weird cause they never make anything of it again and the pants are a dead give away to him being a fake valet. And all the character hate him after the murder happens and he stops pretending. I mean they hate him more than anyone hated the MURDER VICTIM.

Even finding out who did it sucks because you still just don’t god damn care about any of the five-thousand characters!!!!!!!!! And you especially don’t care about the people that did it because they are barely in the movie but its portrayed as an emotional scene when you find out. AHHHHHH this movie was so annoying to watch, really I cant believe anyone has ever enjoyed this movie.

Anyways, even the cinematography was boring despite all the beautiful set work. It’s like they expected all the old things to automatically make the movie look good and disregarded any camera technique. I mean the production designer must have hated the cinematographer because he shows off the beautiful sets in the most drab way, often with shitty mid range closeups or tracking shots on the characters you couldn’t care less about. The lighting is boring, the framing is boring, the camera movements are boring, its just boring on boring on boring.

Gaaaaah fuck this movie, I rarely hate a movie but Jesus what a waste of 2 hours this movie is, please just watch clue instead its not some cinema masterpiece but at least its funny and not almost two and a half hours long.

3/10 It’s not a 1 purely for the set design and acting EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE BOTH CRIMINALLY UNDERUTILIZED