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'The End of Violence'
This film proves that even the greatest among us are capable of having a very bad day. Directed by Wim Wenders, who astonished moviegoers with "Paris, Texas" in 1984 and more
recently with "Wings of Desire," really flames out in this dreary piece of
post-modern funk. It follows two storylines in Los Angeles but never really
connects them in satisfying ways, while continually introducing new and
meaningless characters. Bill Pullman plays an American film producer given
to making schlock who is one day nearly brought to the abyss by some very
real violence directed against him. Meanwhile, a government project
masterminded by Gabriel Byrne seeks to blanket America in video monitoring
systems and thereby destroy crime while destroying privacy. These stories
touch initially, but the movie ultimately succombs to entropy when it turns
out Wenders has no idea how to end violence and nothing particularly
interesting to say about it. It combines the worst of European art-movie
existential cliche and the worst of Hollywood emptiness: anomie meets
glitz.
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