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Hard Candy (2005)
They never showed this on Dateline.
The plot is simple enough. A 30 something photographer, a.k.a. Jeff, meets an underage androgynous robot, a.k.a. Hayley, (after the movie it goes on to play an X-Men) over the internet. They meet over coffee and she/it suggests that they reconvene at his place. Yada, yada, yada .... Dateline shows up and reads their chat room conversations in a stoic and morose manner. Or better yet, it turns out the AI robot is actually an undercover member or law enforcement who arrests him on the spot. No I'm just kidding. In the movie, the roles of victim/assailant are thrown up in the air. We are torn. Who is right in this scenario ? You find yourself swaying depending on what we see and what we hear.
I definitely had mixed feelings about this movie. During the first 60-65 minutes of the movie I was cursing myself for picking yet another dud. The movie gets a little better down the stretch, probably due to the increase of actual violence and decrease in supposedly intelligent "dialog" (not to mention the interesting "Wicked"-like ending). I have always disliked dialog that seems intelligent at first, except if force fed to the actors (especially done in a lot of indy movies). Usually this is due to a bad combination of dialog and casting. Unfortunately, I found myself either shaking my head at the juvenile nature of the dialog or the sudden switch to calculated Orwellian-like dialog. For an example of this, check out the one-dimensional Nicolas Cage in American Treasure where his "revelations" suddenly appear in his mind, as if someone just spoke the line to him through an earpiece. Another problem with this movie comes from the fact that if you have probably heard of the movie, you also know the synopsis. It's also right there on the back of the box. Without the element of surprise, this movie loses most of its bite. Also, unless you have been under a rock or do not like Asian cinema you have seen this before in any of Chan-wook Park's Vengeance trilogy or Takashii Miike's Audition. By those standards, this movie is tame.
In the end, you find out very little except what we already suspected initially. So the whole movie turns into a giant vigilante retribution session, except the involvement of the "child" robot is still somewhat in doubt. Was this an experiment, an initiation, the loss of innocence, justice or a prank? Is she a victim, a vigilante, a criminal or a relative? Who knows. Only Grandma, the Woodsman and the big bad Wolf know.
Definitely see this movie before any of the movies I mentioned earlier, otherwise you might be a little disappointed or have a sense of deja vu. The uncut (sorry for the pun) version of this movie (if it exists) should be required punishment for sexual predators, pedophiles, rapists, domestic abusers, female castrators and so forth. They should be strapped in and forced to watch (much like Alex De Large).
I definitely had mixed feelings about this movie. During the first 60-65 minutes of the movie I was cursing myself for picking yet another dud. The movie gets a little better down the stretch, probably due to the increase of actual violence and decrease in supposedly intelligent "dialog" (not to mention the interesting "Wicked"-like ending). I have always disliked dialog that seems intelligent at first, except if force fed to the actors (especially done in a lot of indy movies). Usually this is due to a bad combination of dialog and casting. Unfortunately, I found myself either shaking my head at the juvenile nature of the dialog or the sudden switch to calculated Orwellian-like dialog. For an example of this, check out the one-dimensional Nicolas Cage in American Treasure where his "revelations" suddenly appear in his mind, as if someone just spoke the line to him through an earpiece. Another problem with this movie comes from the fact that if you have probably heard of the movie, you also know the synopsis. It's also right there on the back of the box. Without the element of surprise, this movie loses most of its bite. Also, unless you have been under a rock or do not like Asian cinema you have seen this before in any of Chan-wook Park's Vengeance trilogy or Takashii Miike's Audition. By those standards, this movie is tame.
In the end, you find out very little except what we already suspected initially. So the whole movie turns into a giant vigilante retribution session, except the involvement of the "child" robot is still somewhat in doubt. Was this an experiment, an initiation, the loss of innocence, justice or a prank? Is she a victim, a vigilante, a criminal or a relative? Who knows. Only Grandma, the Woodsman and the big bad Wolf know.
Definitely see this movie before any of the movies I mentioned earlier, otherwise you might be a little disappointed or have a sense of deja vu. The uncut (sorry for the pun) version of this movie (if it exists) should be required punishment for sexual predators, pedophiles, rapists, domestic abusers, female castrators and so forth. They should be strapped in and forced to watch (much like Alex De Large).
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