mdarmocida OMG this was an absolutely awful movie! The movie puts you in the wrong mood from the very beginning when they start with the upper right camera but keep rolling credits and playing intro music in the other three frames (making it nearly impossible to understand the upper right frame). Then they gradually bring in the other frames one at a time. Once all four frames are on-board you're thinking the movie will pick up and the plot will take shape - never happens. If you're going to do something this daring you should at least have a good story with which to do it. However, this is without a doubt the worst movie I've ever seen (and I've seen some pretty bad movies). Even if the same story was a single screen movie it would also be the worst movie I've ever seen - again the story sucked. The story goes nowhere and there's never a payoff. It's like the producers put this movie together simply for the sake of syncing four frames in a time-code without any concern for the movie being good; either that or they spent so much money on the technical challenge and the brand name actors that they didn't pay for a writer and had a retarded monkey write the script for them.

paul2001sw-1 When split-screen cinema first became possible in the 1960s, it also became fashionable, with movies such as the original 'Thomas Crowne Affair' using it to prove just quite how hip and cool they were. But non-one, surely, has ever constructed a film as boldly as Mike Figgis has 'Timecode', a movie in which the narrative is told in four separate panels at all times. And it's not enough to concentrate on just one either: there's always something of note going on in at least two panels (and which two varies continuously), which kind of begs the question, just how much of your brain to do you use when watching a conventional movie? Or alternatively, how many brains do you have? Certainly, watching 'Timecode' is never a relaxing experience, but Figgis does some things to make our lives easier: with the remarkable soundtrack, for example (the director even composed some of the songs on it) and the way that the aural focus shifts between the segments; or the fact that each segment is shot without any cutting. In some ways, this latter fact is the most surprising of the movie: who can make a movie without cutting? and yet, in pulling this off, Figgis actually comes some way towards the justification of his wider structure. For telling four stories at once brings sufficient (OK, maybe excessive) busyness to allow each story to be told in real time, often a holy grail of drama but rarely achievable (unless you want Jack Bauer ridiculousness or 'Big Brother' tedium). But aside from the structure, is it worth watching? This is a harder question to answer, it's very hard to put the form of the movie out of your mind when watching it, but I was moved in the end. And while the film may have been simply too extraordinary to set any trends, it deserves much credit for its unique blend of audaciousness and skill.

bob the moo While Alex is dodging the morning team meeting for his fledgling film production company, his team are complaining about his attitude and time keeping. Meanwhile on a cab drive, upcoming actress Rose is sharing a limo with lover Lauren, who is confronting her on her suspected infidelity. Meanwhile Alex's wife Emma sees her shrink to discuss dreams and issues within her life. Meanwhile the security guard and receptionist greet those coming to audition for parts and pitch scripts.Those looking for a night in to just veg out and half-watch a movie should probably bail out as the opening titles roll because this is not a film to provide you with the type of entertainment where you can just not pay attention for time. The film has a very disjointed narrative following a collection of characters and it is the type of story that would have been well delivered in a "Short Cuts" style approach. It isn't perfect but it is interesting enough and has plenty of stuff going on within the script. Ironically the split screen, real time approach (gimmick?) make it selective viewing but also worth a wide audience seeing. It takes a minute to get into the stride of the film and pick up the threads . Specific frames have their volume raised to be audible above the others and this tends to work very well while visually I was still following each frame. While it is fair to call it a gimmick it does make the film worth seeing simply because it is so original an idea (at least as far as I am aware). It does have boring patches and it is certainly not a brilliant film in the traditional sense (the dramatic resolution didn't convince or engage me) but the "gimmick" does make it worth seeing.Technically the film is impressive because of the long takes and the way the action moves between cameras/frames in a seamless and it comes off really well. The cast are pretty impressive on paper and you can see why they were all drawn to this challenging experiment. With the nature of the film nobody is really given the opportunity to dominate but considering the difficulty of keeping going with four cameras doing single takes it is impressive that nobody messes up. Burrows wasn't all I would have liked but main turns from Skarsgård, Tripplehorn and Hayek were all good in their characters. The support cast is also strong with solid work from Berkeley, Brooks, Hunter, Huston, MacLachlan, Sands and others.Overall then not a great film but one that is successful on its own terms. The story is engaging even if it becomes forced towards the end but the delivery is the main reason for seeing it. The cast work well with the challenge of working in one take but it is the direction that is more impressive as four cameras work really well together on the one take and it is hard not to be taken in by it on this level. Not great in the traditional sense but well worth seeing for what it does.

mrrydogg I think Figgis' got ahead of himself when he thought he could pull this off. It is a great idea, but even after 15 takes there are still scenes where the actors flub lines or can't think of something intelligent to say. Cameramen appear in multiple scenes as well as other members of the production crew. Yes there is no film editing, cuts I mean, but he does edit the sound which in this case is just as effective. Yeah you can watch any frame of your choosing, but most will choose to watch the one or two with sound than the others. I think editing would of actually helped this because so much of an actors performance is driven by the editor. You could still have four screens, but why not cut a little to see some performances shine? This is no Rope by Hitchcock thats for sure.