Faces in the Crowd (2011)

the audience applauded

Simply Perfect

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Milla Jovovich plays a woman whom, after an encounter with a serial killer, injures herself and causes a condition where she cannot control her facial recognition.So only Julian McMahons beard, and ties being worn can help her.When a prolific actor or actress stars in a straight to DVD movie, you know that there must be problems, even ultraviolet had a cinema release.And there are huge problems with this movie, despite the concept being sound. The main problem is, they play this like a horror movie, whereas it could have worked much better as a thriller, an intelligent thriller, rather than having her guess who is who.The cast are okay, but look so out of place, and for the most part, McMahon looks really embarrassed to be this, and on occasion, Jovovich looks and acts like a cyborg.Its aiming for the whodunit crowd, but this would have been made in 1992 with Michael Douglas and Madeleine Stowe.But when you think about if, it was made in the nineties.Has anyone seen Blink, or Jennifer 8?Pointless.

Milla Jovovich is a charismatic and talented actress who sadly, it seems, is in movies that undermine her potential to really stand out on screen. Faces In A Crowd is a junky, cheaply made horror/thriller that could have been saved if it had stayed consistent with its brilliant opening. The sleek, cold, futuristic vibe of the city Milla's character resides in has so much potential. The production design was killer (no pun intended). The camera-work - before it became sloppy as the film went on - was top notch. It was reminiscent in style of paranoid 70s thrillers (i.e. Coma, Fantastic Voyage, The Stepford Wives, All The President's Men) in terms of some tense situation happening in a creepily inorganic environment. Such an environment ratchets up the tension because the viewer cannot be comforted scenically by anything in the film around them. The film however, as it progressed, got sloppier and sloppier. The scenes involving Face Blindness are chillingly effective for the first 15 minutes, but soon get old. The film simply doesn't hold together. It is also a blatant rip-off in all departments of a 1990s thriller called Blink with Madeleine Stowe. The similarities are as bizarre as Dredd and The Raid: Redemption's similarities, although stylistically this film is more competently made. All in all, a real disappointment. It's got a clichéd ending, a poor middle, and a brilliant opening that falls flat on its face. My big question, what happened? It started out so well...

OK, so by now your interest should have piqued having read the outlining premise of the movie; Jokovich regains consciousness after being attacked by "tear jerk jack" (!) albeit having lost the ability to read people's faces..where do I begin? Well Jokovich,bless her, does her best to invest in the film, but ultimately runs around making squeaky noises, freaking out over the slightest incident which makes her look like a neurotic housewife having just discovered a mouse. I think the majority of the time she's trying to make up for the hopeless storyline and flat stereotypical characters around her however I have had ironing sessions which are more thrilling than this film. Julian McMahon, once hot and credible, is starting to lose his hair, obviously dyes it and has a substantial middle aged paunch creeping up.. His "I appear to be a gruff, misunderstood, bombastic cop but I'm actually a good guy frustrated at my inability to catch tear jerk jack the serial killer" routine comes across as naff as he dad runs around for most of the film vowing not to let Jokovich "out of his sight" an then proceeds to let her out of his sight so the killer can take advantage of her disability and attempt to rape, murder and cry over her lifeless body. Honestly, that's his Modus operandi; he crys and his killings are linked through DNA profiling the tears found on the bodies - genius! Watch out for marianne faithful (once famous for going out with mick jagger) who has had her lips inflated so much it is hard to understand her; this only enhances (pardon the pun) the ridiculousness of his film. Now excuse me whilst my three year old niece and I, using only chunky crayons and sheets of blank paper, set about creating the next movie for mila to "produce"

Usually, I look for Horror films to watch (and later review), simply because I'm a huge Horror fan. However, many great Horror films have many Thriller features in them especially the rush and guessing work the audience goes through, then finally the twist towards the end.Faces in the crowd is an excellent Detective Thriller / Whodunit, using a very original and genius idea. A serial killer is terrorizing the state, and the sole eye witness who has seen him in the act - suffers head trauma and loses the ability to differentiate or remember faces. The careful and very clever cinematography portrayed the condition of "face blindness" in a very relatable way, making the audience almost go through the same experience as the protagonist.The script was very good in my opinion, some of the lines were truly magnificent(especially those of the deaf Psychiatrist, trying to explain to the face-blind protagonist how to remember faces the same way a deaf person remembers music). The twist towards the end, however, could have been better, and the ending felt rather anticlimactic. That was very unfortunate, as this film had the potential to be one of the best.All in all, I had a great time watching Faces in the Crowd, one of the best story ideas I've ever seen! Trying to remain objective I rate it 7, but don't miss out on it!