RATING: 5/5
Strap on your belt. Hold on tight. You’re about to get on the
wildest ride of your life. Your eyes will be flooded with such
visuals that they will tickle your brain cells for days to come.
The film at hand is Machiavelli Hangman and perhaps the most
riveting and surprisingly good film of the year. It doesn’t
pretend to be a big-budget film because it’s not. What it is,
however, is the brainchild of writer/director Shervin Youssefian
and a completely different breed of filmmaking than what you may
have seen before.
They may need to put up warning signs for those weak of heart to
watch out for high exhilaration and unbearable suspense, not to
mention one of the hilarious sequences in recent film history.
Machiavelli Hangman tells the time-old story of an ordinary man
caught in extraordinary circumstances. The plot develops when he
goes along with the huge misunderstanding and adopts his mistaken
identity and makes it his own. Of course, the conflict of
realities catches up with him at the same time it catches up with
us. Up to that point, the audience is not let in on the secret
that the hero is not who everyone thinks he is. The film is
twisty and full of surprises around each corner. It makes you
laugh one minute and hold on to your seats the next.
Machiavelli Hangman is so fascinating because it truly explores
every type of human personality there is and caricaturizes it for
the sake of humor. There is the frustrated trophy wife, the
cynical treasure hunting husand, the jealous mistress, gang lord
going through mid-life crisis, the loser, the maniac, the
debutant and the suidical assassin.
The film is a comedic gem and it is truly rare that a film like
this delivers and manages to satisfy on every level. The
structure is spotless and the theme and message are both
extremely well though out and relevant to our times.
While most of the films these days seem to be adaptations of
other works (Hulk, Spiderman, Batman Begins, Superman Returns,
King Kong, War of the Worlds, Dukes of Hazzard, Wedding Crashers,
etc…) it’s quite refreshing to see a film that is completely
original. A work that shows the real love of filmmaking as it was
created in the head of a visionary filmmaker.
Hollywood has lost its taste for risk-taking and most of the
material that comes out falls flat. By relying too heavily on
conventional structure and storytelling and remakes, audiences
become overly passive and lose a real understanding of what
tasteful filmmaking is.
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