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Dark Horse

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Dark Horse (2012)

June. 08,2012
|
5.9
|
NR
| Drama Comedy
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Abe is a man who is in his thirties and who lives with his parents. He works regretfully for his father while pursuing his hobby of collecting toys. Aware that his family doesn't think highly of him, he tries to spark a relationship with Miranda, who recently moved back home after a failed literary/academic career. Miranda agrees to marry Abe out of desperation, but things go awry.

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Stometer
2012/06/08

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

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UnowPriceless
2012/06/09

hyped garbage

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Smartorhypo
2012/06/10

Highly Overrated But Still Good

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Arianna Moses
2012/06/11

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

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SnoopyStyle
2012/06/12

Abe (Jordan Gelber) is an angry, self-loathing, petty slob loser. He dropped out of college and fell into a job in his father's company. Miranda (Selma Blair) is a depressed divorced woman forced to retreat back home. They meet at a wedding and Abe can't help but start the stalking. Miranda is broken and she just might go with Abe even if she doesn't love him.Todd Solondz does another movie on another socially awkward underclass. The biggest problem with this movie is the Abe character. He is too angry, too petty. He has no redeeming qualities. If he wasn't so pathetic, I would be rooting for somebody to put a bullet in him. Do I care about him? Not the slightest. Another problem is the surreal turns it takes for the last half. That kind of storyline never really works for me.

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zetes
2012/06/13

It's nice to see Todd Solondz working again, even if his films never play anywhere. Jordan Gebler stars as a chubby man in his 30s living with his parents (Mia Farrow and Christopher Walken) and working for his father. His life is going nowhere, and he's taking out his existential frustrations on everyone around him. He has one small hope in a new acquaintance he's made, an enormously depressed girl he meets at a wedding (Selma Blair, reprising her character from Solondz Storytelling - maybe). The two don't hit it off right away, but, thankfully for him, she soon gives up on all of her aspirations and agrees to his ill-advised marriage proposal. This is perhaps a tad less funny than Solondz's best films and even more depressing. Bartha is so obnoxious I could imagine many viewers tuning out immediately, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't see myself in that character. Most of us have these tendencies, or at least know someone who does. As the film progresses, it often enters the realm of fantasy or imagination without warning, often from the perspective of a character whom we might not imagine at first. It's an interesting film that I didn't flat-out love, but it's one I would like to see again in the future, for sure. Performances all around are very good. It's nice to see Farrow - can't remember the last time. Donna Murphy and Aasif Mandvi also have choice roles.

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tieman64
2012/06/14

"I busted a mirror and got seven years bad luck. My lawyer says he can get me five." - Steve Wright "Dark Horse" is another depressing film from writer/director Todd Solondz. The plot? Jordan Gelber plays Abe, an overweight man who lives with his parents and works for his father. Stuck in arrested development, Abe collects toys, struggles to date women and uses fancy jewellery and expensive cars to help foster, for himself, the illusion that he may one day "grow up" and "be someone". In this regard Abe sees himself as a dark horse; someone who will one day overcome suffering and set backs to find eventual happiness. The truth, of course, is that these beliefs are defence mechanisms which Abe uses to protect himself from reality. What is this reality? Abe's life has always been one of unhappiness/suffering, and is likely to always be one of unhappiness/suffering. Solondz then asks his audience this: should Abe give up on hope? Should Abe give up on life? Can people change and/or escape themselves? If you've seen Solondz's other films, you already know the answers. It's all very grim.Mirrored to Abe is Miranda (Selma Blair), the young woman from Solondz's "Storytelling". She's a failed writer with a disease and suicidal tendencies. Like Abe, she's given up on life. Both Abe and Miranda are avatars of Solondz, people he at one point feared he might himself become. The film then ends with Abe - always unlucky – dying due to a ridiculous series of freak events. People quickly forget about him, with the exception of a lonely co-worker, another dark horse who privately hopes whilst quietly suffering. Most who view the film react with hostility toward Abe. His suffering is "all his fault", he "is a jerk", he should "man up", "grow up" and stop being a "fat, rude loser". Others spin ridiculous theories: "Abe is a victim of a collapsed housing market", "Abe is suffering financial problems" etc. Why has Abe's life really gone off the tracks? Solondz provides clues (divorce, over sensitivity, inferiority complexes, hair-loss, weight problems, low self esteem, sense of entitlement etc), but the point is that it doesn't matter. With "Palindromes" Solondz already expressed a firm stance: blaming the victim for being unable to escape traps solely because others may have escaped similar traps is a fallacy rooted in a very specific type of optimism. For Solondz, destiny is always fixed, Abe's demise should be treated as a priori and Abe doesn't triumph simply because Abe does not triumph. Anyone in his exact situation would have met the same fate. It is not his fault. It is simply a slow, inexorable inevitability. Forces – social, familial, genetic, psychological, emotional, whatever – are at work here which require huge counter forces to escape. Can Abe muster the energy necessary to escape? He thinks he can, he comes close at times, he maintains throughout much of the film a fiery, heated sense of optimism. But there's only so much he can take, and in the end the universe wins.The film ends with the reminisces of one of Abe's co-workers. The intention here is to share her moment of grief. To mourn, with her, the passing of Abe, and of course to empathise with her own exclusion. But Solondz can't quite handle the moment. The film's too ironic, too knowing, too smug, to capture the emotional waves which Solondz wants us to ride. It may be a psychologically accurate film, but it's also one which is caustic and depressing rather than sad and touching. Abe's parents are played by Christopher Walken and Mia Farrow. Farrow gets the film's best scene, in which she consoles her son after he confesses his hatred of the world; life's repeatedly burnt him and so he harbours deep pain/resentment. The film's been compared to the work of Woody Allen and the Coen's Brothers - other directors who wallow in one-note existentialism - but Solondz is far more bleak.8/10 – Worth one viewing.

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gagmeger
2012/06/15

This movie is terrible. I just watched it on on-demand. The beginning is OK. The ending is ?????. You can't figure out if he is dreaming, dead, or just the director's dream. I watched it because it had an IMDb rating of 6.3. I will watch any movie that has a decent amount of reviews and it scores above 6.0 on IMDb. This was the first BAD choice. It must be people voting for it who know the actors or the crew. I can't imagine anyone with their right mind scoring anything but a 2.If you agree with this review and you didn't like it, please post your review. The overall IMDb review for this movie should be less than 5.The acting was good but the script? OMGI'm not one to write bad reviews but I won't get back this 90 minutes of my life back.

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