Truth be told. Hollywood hasn’t come out with a great movie for a 
long time. The last great, completely solid motion pictures in 
the last decade were films like Braveheart, American Beauty and 
Saving Private Ryan. Unfortunately, the rest of the films that 
were offered to us movie fans always found a way to fall short of 
perfection. 

In recent years, there were films such as Lord of the Rings that 
relied heavily on special effects and the already great fan base 
that the novels generated. Crash was an independent film that 
almost made it to the classics category, but the lewd essence and 
"rough around the edges" quality of the filmmaking cut its 
chances in half.

Quentin Tarantino wasn’t able to duplicate his masterpiece tour-
de-force Pulp Fiction with his following tries. Jackie Brown was 
too talky and it lost its audience’s attention after the first 10 
minutes and Kill Bill was the exact opposite and could never be 
taken as a serious cinematic work. 

Sixth Sense was an innovation in the world of cinema but it 
didn’t have enough solidity through out its whole body to 
complement the great conclusion. The Usual Suspects had the same 
situation by having a powerful ending but nothing so impressive 
leading up to it.

How about all those comic book adaptations? It seems like 
filmmakers these days make films to make money and there is 
really no drive toward creativity and taking risks. One of the 
films that was recently nominated for the Oscars was Lost in 
Translation – which although so small managed to stand on its own 
too feet. It was a breeze of fresh air and it didn’t feel like 
two hours; it felt like a casual and satisfying conversation with 
a person across the dinner table.

Machiavelli Hangman achieved that magic even though it was also 
swimming in the same low-budget waters as Lost in Translation. 
When there is so much at stake, there seems to be an awkward 
sense of restriction placed on how far the film can take you. The 
high budget and production values place that limitation on risk 
and spontaneity and it doesn’t leave the story any room for 
breathing.

Napoleon Dynamite was made just like Machiavelli Hangman, on 
a thread-thin budget but it felt real and that’s the reason for 
its tremendous success. The irony is that no matter how many of 
these "real" movies prove successful at the box-office, studios 
continue to make motion pictures that depend mainly on special 
effects and visuals.

Learn from the amateurs. Focus on story. 

Arthur Kohoutova is a movie reviewer.
Machiavelli Hangman
http://www.hangmanmovie.com