SnoopyStyle The Lone Man (Isaach De Bankolé) is given instruction on a mysterious mission. He meets various people who gives him various mercurial messages.Writer/director Jim Jarmusch has created a movie of beautiful style but with little substance. It is lovingly shot. The plot would fit comfortably on the back of an envelop and the dialog on a 3-hole page, double spaced and on one side. The movie luxuriates on nothing scenes. It uses silence as a special effects and convoluted messages as insightful. My biggest problem with this is that it uses great actors as nothing more than cardboard cutouts. In the end, there is nothing here but a failed art experiment.

Zadok Allen ...since most people don't. To me it seems like a true piece of art: not necessarily headed anywhere, offering infinite ways of seeing it. You might say it is the story of a killer who follows clues and talks to people until finally facing off against the bad guy. Seen this way you might say the basic plot is like a James Bond. Then again it is so barren and those "clues" are so utterly random and counter-intuitive that it is more like the exact opposite of a Bond. A naked woman and he just doesn't want to sleep with her? That might be "professional" or possibly even "realistic" for a killer - Bond would never ever (not) do that. From this perspective this "Bond" is completely deconstructed, thus commenting on the nature of movies as well as art in general. No one I talked to saw any similarity to a Bond movie. However: the "clues" in a common James Bond'ish movie usually do not make any sense either. We can easily follow a story where the agent suddenly flies to Miami because a guy we never heard about supposedly lives there. Now we heard that our protagonist needs that unknown guy to decode the transponder code for the sub-nuclear particle reverser - the super weapon. Nonsense like that is commonplace in movies. Protagonists just use keywords to travel from here to there. This movie however insists on pointing that out. "Caution: this plot is based on keywords that do not make any sense in the slightest". Well not THAT literally - almost though. Although the "keyword plot" is so common it usually goes with an illusion of logical coherence, continuity and sense. This illusion is rejected in this case. What you got are the bare bones of a common movie along with a lot of commenting on art, how it is made and how communication works. Unfortunately most people do not feel like the movie communicates anything. It rather feels like this one takes them for fools - which is why it is unpopular. Maybe it went too far. It's almost as rejecting as Kubricks 2001. However: it does NOT feature a 3 minute black screen intermezzo. 10 out of 10 from me.

Matt Kracht The Limits of Control is a surreal, minimalistic movie that subverts everything that's supposed to happen in a thriller. I can totally understand why people would dislike this movie. If you went in expecting a traditional thriller, then it's certainly going to be a disappointment. I'm sure some people will find it pointless and too self-conscious, but this is a pretty common complaint about Jarmusch's work. For some people, his movies work, and, for others, they don't.If you like Jarmusch's slower, more surreal movies, then I'd suggest you give this a chance. It's not my favorite Jarmusch movie, and I think that some of it went over my head, but I liked it quite a lot. The pacing was almost as dream-like as the cinematography. Everything came together beautifully, even if not all of it made sense the first time through. This is one of the reasons why I love the IMDb, however. I love reading everyone's interpretation of movies like this. If you like discussing movies, rather than simply watching them, this will give you a lot to talk about.

mitcherator777 OK So I decided to watch a few minutes of this movie (albeit was already into the movie but figured whatever I'll give it a go) recorded the rest onto the DVR and watched the rest later. Big mistake.Albeit I haven't watched the beginning of the movie, what should draw your attention during the movie is the middle of the movie to make you want to go back and watch it again.I guess this movie is suppose to be some kind of art basically or something to appeal to a small group of people. Granted some artsy folks who think dots on a paper or watching paint dry will make them excited or something it doesn't do it for me.I had no idea what's going on with the protagonist I guess it's about this guy who is on this secret mission to assassinate this guy or something I have no idea then you find out later were not really sure who this guy is after all.Anyway I'm not sure what to make out of this thing other than if you find watching paint dry on a wall entertaining or grass grow I suppose this will be of some value.