moviemaster This should have gotten the Jury award for biggest turkey of the year. People think that if the actors talk in some sort of mumbo jumbo they must be expressing something prophetic... in this case pathetic. Oh it's a product of LA all right, self absorbed and searching for the meaning of life in a place which has already determined that the meaning of life is the fast lane. The protagonist not only gets off the fast lane but falls off the track all together. The acting by some of the principals is bad. The acting of some of the supporting cast is laughable. The director must have been high on life or pot for this is really one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Given material that has merit, the director has produced a few fine works... this is far from one. I doubt if most people who actually paid money to see it lasted to the end. Why bother? I got it in the remainder bin of Comcast... those free movies they allow you to see. They should pay people to watch stuff like this.

jotix100 Wim Wenders "The End of Violence" is a film that evokes the director's own work. Also, we are reminded, somewhat, of Antonioni's "Blow Up" because of the elements the director has brought to the movie. At any rate, this is an enigmatic piece of cinema that will divide the audience. Some will love it, some will hate it; there's no two ways about it. It might help to take a second viewing, as things will, no doubt, fall into place.The film focuses on Mike Max, a powerful Hollywood producer, who we meet at the beginning of the story. Mr. Max, like all key players in the industry must be wired to all kinds of devices in order to keep on top of the movies, the trend, and the gossip, associated with making movies. When his wife Page wants to talk to him, she calls him to his poolside perch to announce she is leaving him.The other important character in the film is Ray Bering, a laconic man we watch going to an observatory where he works. There are a lot of monitors in the place, and we realize Ray is spying on what's happening in the outside world, a sort of Big Brother Voyeur, if you will. When Mike Max is kidnapped by two hired assassins and he is taking under some highway overpasses, it registers in one of Ray's monitors, but being so far from the scene, he can't determine who it is. Ray believes that by controlling the street crime, the violence will disappear.Max, who didn't die, is found by a group of Mexican gardeners who take him to the home of one of them without asking him questions. This proves to be Max's salvation because he stays out of harm's way. To make matters worse, the producer was told at the start of the story a lengthy FBI file has been found in his email. Mike Max, who is producing a movie, now in production, can't prevent Page, who realizes her husband might be dead, to take over the film and his business.There are a few other narratives going on, but suffice it to say, they all come together at the end, as we realize what has really happened. Wim Wenders, who made this film much earlier, seems to have pointed out to last year's "Crash", with its multiple stories happening also in Los Angeles. Pascal Rabaud's photography gives a different look to this L.A. in the picture. The music of Ry Cooder, who went to collaborate with Mr. Wenders, gives the film another dimension with its enigmatic score. Nicholas Klein's wrote the screen play with Mr. Wenders.Bill Pullman has great opportunities in the film. This fine actor never ceases to amaze for his range. Gabriel Byrne is seen as Ray Bering, the man overlooking the street crime he wants to eliminate. Traci Lind and Loren Dean are fine as well. Anddie MacDowell appears as Page, the ambitious wife who takes over when her husband disappears. Legendary director Sam Fuller has a small part as Ray's father. The ensemble cast does a wonderful job.Wim Wenders directed with his usual fine style this moody film that is worth a look by any movie fan.

rparham Wim Wender's The End of Violence is a rather disjointed and uninvolving piece of film-making. It wants to be a tale about how violence affects our lives and how, once exposed to it, we find ourselves fundamentally changed. It might actually succeed if it wasn't busy confusing the audience and boring them to death at the same time.As the film opens, we are treated to a day in the life of Hollywood producer Mike Max (Bill Pullman), who is busy wheeling and dealing through multiple phones and computer connections, all the while ignoring his wife, Paige (Andie McDowell). While he is out during the day, he is kidnapped by two not quite bright hit men who are killed in a mysterious fashion and Mike Max manages to escape. He is found dazed by some Latino gardeners and Mike decides that he needs to hide from his old life to protect himself while discovering that violence, which he has peddled in action movies, is a bad thing. Meanwhile, Paige has taken over her husbands company in his absence and developed a relationship with a recording artist named Six (K. Todd Freeman) who provides the love she was lacking in her relationship with Mike. Also meanwhile, technical whiz Ray Bering (Gabriel Byrne) is busy putting the finishing touches on a high-tech surveillance system that the government hopes to use to bring violence in the city under control. However, Ray begins to suspect that the system is possibly being used for nefarious purposes and is trying to get someone to listen to him. And yet elsewhere still, stuntwoman turned actress Cat (Traci Lind) is getting her big acting break in Mike's latest film, and she finds herself somewhat smitten with detective Dean Brock (Loren Dean) who is investigating the disappearance of Mike.As you can probably tell from the above paragraph, The End of Violence has a lot going on. The problem is that little of it is compelling and because the film is busy juggling so many plot threads at the same time, several of them seem like afterthoughts. The subplot featuring Paige's involvement with Six, for instance, has absolutely no emotional resonance for the audience because we barely know these people. The film also takes a lot of side trips to inexplicable scenes where people gather at performance art sessions to get some bigger message across, I guess, but they just end up being pointless and drawing the film out even more.Wenders manages to suck the life out of most of the scenes in the film. The acting is uniformly wooden and unconvincing, the characters are little more than bodies going through the motions, and the plot is half-explained and developed. Take the plot thread of Ray trying to discover the truth about the surveillance system. It is revealed eventually that he has actually already been in contact with Mike about it with the hopes of revealing the system to the public, but the film has so many pieces moving around that it takes forever to make the connection between those two characters.The film also features dreaded voice-over monologues that are just silly and pretentious. The anti-violence message, what there is of it, is also heavy-handed, to say the least. In one scene, Six speaks to Mike on the phone and gives us a long explanation about why violence is good and people revel in it. You can practically see Wenders on his soapbox while this scene is going on.I suppose this movie is supposed to be a thriller to some degree, but there is little that is thrilling about The End of Violence. It is a monotonous bore of a film that comes to a rather abrupt ending without really dealing with all of the issues it seems to want to explore. Instead of an end of violence, I'll take an end to this particular mess.

prairiem I'm not surprised that a child would not understand this movie. To me it was very meaningful, but only in terms of lived experience in jobs and politics. It's really "Brave New World," where authority figures keep order by putting up cameras everywhere and intervening to eliminate anyone who is disorderly or criminal. Violence is a huge preoccupation, but only tolerated as make-believe -- but the make-believe gets confused with real violence. Control, transgression, power are the pivots of the well-to-do. Ashcroft stuff.But the Mexican and immigrant families offer a warmer, truer alternative. In the end, they are more powerful because they are free and can think. The Kinko's episode, in which the police are defeated from taking control by their own preconceptions, is a good example. As underlings, laborers, the Mexicans understand what's at stake and they are everywhere, invisible to their employers. The intellectual technician doesn't catch on until it's too late.I'm told that what I saw was a re-cut and that the early version was indeed chaotic with a lot of loose ends. All I can say is that now this is one of the videos I rewatch and ponder.