SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Console best movie i've ever seen.

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Guy Plot: A lonely security guard is manipulated by a femme fatale working for a gang of jewel thievesThis is a film that is so bleak that it actually becomes very funny, in a slightly hysterical sort of way. It was recently broadcast in the UK at 2am, which must have made for a surreal viewing experience. The plot is minimal, the characterisation light, and the script short. Much of the film is taken up with long silences (in which the characters smoke), songs being played in full, and lengthy shots (check out the one of a card game in the gangster's den, where the femme fatale vacuums the carpet). The protagonist never actually does anything, preferring to simply let events wash over him, and for a thriller there are no thrills. Nor is there any action, or humour, or human warmth (the final shot excepted). Nonetheless, the film is gripping in a curious way, its bleakness and underdog hero proving strangely compulsive viewing.

grondag I love foreign films. Maybe its because they aren't spoiled with the propaganda and commercialization prevalent in Hollywood films. This little jewel has made a place as one of my favorites. I discovered it on the Sundance Channel one day in August but I didn't watch it all. Even then I realized it would be best to watch it in colder weather to match the climate on the film. I only watch Dr. Zhivago in January or February. This film is wonderfully minimalistic. It doesn't tax your brain but is never boring due to the absorbing cinematography. Also, I love films that have a lot of quiet passages and this one does not disappoint. Thank God for movies like this. They cleanse the palate of inferior Hollywood drivel.

battisti When you get experienced enough as a filmmaker and you learned most of the tricks of the trade, you realise that the best thing to do for an art-house director is to stick mindlessly to whatever made you successful with the festival-going crowd and the film critics earlier. Never mind that you have no new ideas and that the most your film does is deliver the 'good old feeling' everyone expects.That's a fate Kaurismaki seems not to have been able to avoid with his Lights in the Dusk. Totally devoid of ANY new or creative ideas with respect to what we have seen from him before, Kaurismaki's feature recycles his lately trademark - and otherwise very appealing - darkish, yet basically cheerful coloured backgrounds and surroundings behind and around the actors. But the story is the most feeble ever... No real suspense, only mindless clichés about a totally hapless main character (no, this is not irony on the film's part, guys, this is just the 'good-old-Kaurismaki-feeling' we yearn for and it only seems to work because his other films were enjoyable on their own). Plus some sentimental music tossed in (who would have expected that from Kaurismaki? ;), without the real possibility for the viewer to relate to the characters (you feel no sorry, no empathy, only anger at most about how incapable they are).And finally, even at about 75 minutes, this movie is waaaay longer than it should be: another sign of running out of fresh ideas. Hey Aki, you'd better take a rest and come back with something that's more up to your standards. And my advice for the potential viewer: watch the other parts of the trilogy (The Man Without a Past, 2002; Drifting Clouds, 1996), and skip this one.

Tronc This movie sucked. I cannot say anything good about this Finlandia movie. If the style was not done intentionally the director, Aki Kaurismaki, needs to be prevented from ever making another film in his life. And if his kids ever want to make a movie they should be prevented as well just on the principle of who their father is. All through this, thankfully, short movie I kept wondering if this was being done on purpose. It wasn't sure if he wasn't trying to be funny. I'm almost interested in finding a few other Finnish movies to see if this is the norm. I've heard that Finland has the most depressed people with the highest suicide rate. Watch this movie and you'll want to kill yourself too.