Heartless (2009)

The Worst Film Ever

One of my all time favorites.

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

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.

Jamie lives in London with his mother and his father died where he was a child. He had the misfortune to be born with a mark in shape of a heart on his face and he has many other marks on his body, so he is mocked by others when he leaves his house. Soon discovers that some strange masked mens are making havoc on the streets and one night returning home along with his mother she is killed by these thugs. He wants to revenge her and is introduced to a weird and creepy man named Papa B and finds about him that he is nobody else then the devil and the guys on the street are his slaves. He makes a pact with him in witch the marks on him will disappear and could have a chance to be loved by a girl in exchange for a little favor from him. He accepts not knowing that the devil doesn't always play fair and now he must kill someone for him and also be afraid for his own life.The movie will surprise even those who are not fans of this genre with his uniqueness. It's dark, a little scary, has some scenes that will reminds of "Dahmer" and "The Devil's Advocate" and even though the message of the film is not necessarily a positive one, for me it worked.

Tired of living in a squalid section of London, a man with a deformed birthmark makes a deal with a demonic figure to get through his terrible life but finds the deal changed and must confront the results of the changed deal.Utterly intriguing and inviting effort that gets so much right that it's far more enjoyable than expected. Utilizing a far more accurate and realistic depiction of a squalor than most of the types out there, with an urban Hell of gangs running unchecked, a lack of police presence despite their constant appearance, fires, burglaries and gun-use which create a very threatening atmosphere upon which the horror starts up. Far, far more brutal in tone than expected, though the execution is lacking somewhat but there's enough there to leave an overall impression. Once it changes over and gets the deal executed which renders him a lot more normal and strips away the urban Hell of the early stages, it looses it's footing and concentrates on far more useless areas, such as the tepid adoption angle or the clichéd romance that takes up way too much time, is dragged out far beyond it's usefulness and makes the far far longer than it needs to be, moreover the fact that this section is played with a touch of black humor that clashes so jarringly with the gritty realism of the beginning that it really snaps you out of the film and thus this section constitutes it's only true flaw. While it again breathes some nice points with a pretty good finale and some overall nice touches, the middle segment keeps this down somewhat.Rated R: Extreme Graphic Language, Graphic Violence and children-in-jeopardy.

I really liked the idea of a horror movie set in East London - where, coincidentally, I live. Seeing Jim Sturgess' character Jamie mooching around streets that I walk on my way to work was a lot of fun. And Philip Ridley attempts to do something different with the genre, trying to mix supernatural and social conscience. It kind of almost works, but like so many movies in this subject-space, it all goes a bit to hell-in-a-handbasket in the final reel.For me the ending is too much of a cop-out. I was hoping Ridley was going to come up with a better solution to the story than what we got. Very disappointing for the "demons" to be just hoodie, ASBO thugs after all. So I was left thinking that Papa B and Belle were just figments of Jamie's imagination. Now maybe that wasn't what Ridley was trying to put over, but that was what I was getting.What we're left with is a Scooby-Doo type story, where the demons of Bethnal Green just turned out to be "old man Clanton, the creepy caretaker in a mask."And, Philip, you'd have gotten away with it, to, if it hadn't been (etc, etc) ...

The "waste of time" reviews are a bit naive. The movie is a parable about the modern man's fears:Fear of life in a huge city - Fear of losing love and other things you cant live without - Fear of being different, defective (just like the main character)But at the end, hope and courage prevail and despite tragic scenes, the movie leaves you at the end with a feeling of optimism instead of despair.Facing own fears, accepting yourself the way you are, hope in love are in my opinion the main topics of the movie.And most important, its fun to watch! :-)