Borgman (2013)

Too much of everything

A Masterpiece!

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

I had to read some of the more in-depth reviews to understand what I had been watching here, because clearly, I didn't although I'm usually very open to abstraction. In short, this movie is about a home invasion by a hobo and his team, who turn out to be very organized criminals on a murder spree. The whole story is spiked with bizarre dialogs and actions by both the invaders and the invaded. On the plus side, the movie managed to keep my attention until the end. On the minus side, the more it went on, the more the need grew for a big explanation of what was going on and that's where the movie let me down in the end. It just leaves the spectator to interpret for himself. Yes, thank to another review, I now know that the hobo is a demon and that he and his team are collecting souls and twisting the minds of their victims, but my gripe is that this message is so well concealed in a puzzle of symbolic hints that it will remain a mystery to the majority of viewers and that's what I call a pretentious piece of art. It's good to make people think, but it's bad to expose people as idiots by exposing them to a riddle they won't solve for lack of hints and yes, there are many of these hints but they just fail to create an image that could help the viewer solve the puzzle. Add a lot of very gratuitous brutality and you have a movie that comes across like someone wanted to make a version of Funny Games in the style of Lars von Trier. Watch only if you have a special interest in artsy, post Dogma-style movies or a hang to bizarre sadism paired with masochism. That movie made me angry.

Life does not forgive mistakes and some things look like inevitable. This is brilliant story, symbolic as it can be, which may not be easy to understand and maybe a bit daunting but it will keep you interested in the plot till the very end and the messages it brings are numerous and life saving: *the symbol of opening the door to a stranger and not being able to set boundaries, feeling guilty that we owe something to a stranger that never stops and turns into unexpected set of events. *we all are recognized by our deeds, not by one off events, the father who feeds 3 children, or poor guy who begs for shelter, and asks every day more, and never gives, only asks further....and the best ever message of the film is the energy of being close to negativity, or evil may destroy us no matter how smart we are, if we don't flock together, those who are better organized, smarter will win over, its the inevitability of life laws. no mistake is being forgiven, being naive is certainly one of them.In the end it makes you think if life really is simplistic black and white picture, if you believe in the God as the truth, and Evil as the ultimate lie then it is so. And humans are all this in between those extremes.

It's really intriguing, diverse and confusing, also engrossing movie. However, there are many references to Christian culture and myth. If you don't have knowledge on this topic, you can't get the point. The symbol seems strange. After watching movie, you should surf on the web and take notes to see the bigger picture. Still, it's well-done movie, also disturbing. Although, the questions raised on remain unanswered, the curiosity is always kept alive. Throughout the movie the number of questions which remain unanswered continually increasing. Acting is very well. If you think about the popular movies which seem similar to each other, thanks to its uncommon atmosphere this could be the most outstanding movie I've seen this year.

This movie is the BIGGEST letdown of all time! It's like I ate some abstract art and couldn't digest it. So I puked it out and was forced to look at it and interpret it for two hours. Any symbolism is lost when the viewer is subjected to the randomness and illogic of the players. Why have such convoluted scheming to accomplish a simplistic goal. If the Borgman and his minions are demonic, as one reviewer notes, then why poison the gardener and his wife? Just kill the gardener straight out. There weren't any witnesses anyway. Also why kill the wandering applicant? The minions were paying off fake applicants anyway. Couldn't they just pay the wanderer off? Of course if they did that, the evil little girl (how did that happen anyway?) wouldn't have the opportunity to bash in the stranger's head. Really? That was out of nowhere. And while I'm at it, what is with the back surgeries on the children? I'm assuming that's what turned them into evil, unfeeling wack jobs. And yes, I noticed that the minions and Borgman had the same scars on their backs. So what? Are the kids and the nanny the next generation of minions whose duty is to commit senseless violence, achieve no goal, and disappear? Or if this is a psychotic break experienced by the wife, why no resolution when she died? Bottom line is that this movie was awful! There are so many good stories that aren't told because production money is wasted on this type of drivel. If the viewer must try so very hard to construct a story from random and convoluted imagery, then there really is no story at all. Just some crap stuck together after smoking a lot of weed. This movie is dung. Avoid it at all costs! You'll thank me later.