Falling

source: Falling

I'd admit that I haven't seen this but I'm really looking forward to see a direction from Viggo. Also the most underrated actor Lance Hendrickson. Like to see the recognition he deserves

Henriksen is just too annoying... He's completely unlikeable and the movie gets to the point where you're just sick of watching him being a total as.... You can't even blame it on his dementia, it's the character he plays, from the very begging, just nasty, evil person. Makes you wonder, how could those grown up kids of his still call him daddy. How much empathy do they have and where is it coming from? On one hand I admire them and on the other I cannot believe how they both turned out.

This was a hard one. I'm a Viggo Mortensen fan (History Of Violence, Appaloosa, Captain Fantastic, Eastern Promises) but this just became painful after an hour. Found myself begging for someone to just smother the Lance Hendrickson character with a pillow, until finally it all just seemed pointless and I began to lose interest altogether. It's okay to have a despicable character, but eventually this became relentless to the point of needless aggravation, and me being thankful I wasn't watching it in a theatre. And I mean, the kid sleeping with a dead duck? C'mon . . . A much better movie with a similar theme is "Affliction", with Nick Nolte, James Coburn and Sissy Spacek.

Was looking forward to seeing this as love to watch VM acting. Was so disappointed in this film, I cannot find anything positive about it except it ended. Why in the world would any adult allow someone to inflict the verbal abuse we see in this movie on their partner and child is beyond me. The real story here should be what kind of psychological pathology did VMs character have to allow this to be done to those he supposedly loved.

Expected much more from Viggo Mortensen, in spite of his directorial debut. Too many flashbacks, skipping through time, the dynamics is interrupted to often and hard to follow. Also too many cliches. The performances are also unconvincing where Mortensen is sort of underacting, and Lance Henriksen is way over acting. In a word - disappointing

I've always liked Viggo Mortensen, despite my disdain for the Lord of the Rings films, he's always been great in his roles. A History of Violence especially (watch out for the cameo of Mortensen's 3 time collaborator David Cronenberg), and this being his first stab at making a film, is actually quite brilliant. His simple but effective use of the camera capturing not only a relationship between the son and the father who just don't get each other, but also scenery is stunning. With wonderful writing also. Lance Henriksen is an absolute scene stealer as a man suffering from dementia amongst other things. I smell Oscar buzz, if they happen when they're supposed to. This should be seen by any drama fan and film fan.

I was hoping for something thought provoking and watchable. This movie is neither. If you want to watch a movie that has many of the same themes and actually fleshes them out into likable characters I recommend one of Viggos first films The Reflecting Skin. This movie seemed to me a smeared boring revision of it anyways.

I tried to like it, I really did. I failed. This movie was so disjointed I didn't know what it was about, or where to look for inspiration. I watched the first 20 minutes, based on it's premise, then got completely lost. Maybe I missed something, somehow I doubt it.

As the film's title suggests, it's a story about falling, the falling of an old tough-guy whose offensive behavior today's society does not accept, the falling of his troublesome relationship with his liberal son, and along the falling of a promising story teared apart at the hands of an inexperienced Viggo Mortensen as a first time director. Lance Henriksen plays the father, and he plays his role so over-the-top that one wonders if one is watching a parody of something. He just sits there, bad-mouthing and swearing all of the time and tries supernaturaly to be annoying which enters the realm of comic acting. Moreover, his written character is so unbelievably nasty and bitter that his only saving grace would be his passing which in my opinion takes away much from the narrative of the film. Then we have Viggo himself as the son who is a married gay living happily in California with his family yet he has to take care of his homophobic father while also receiving his insults and mockings. These conversations between father and son seem interesting and deep at first, but as we go along the film they tend to repeat and repeat without slowly reaching to the climax. So when the climax, the big scene so to speak, arrives with minimal build-ups the whole explosion and the shouts and fights only add to the gap rather than filling it. To conclude, the film had major problems in some very major parts for me as I felt relieved when it ended.