High-Rise (2016)

What a waste of my time!!!

ridiculous rating

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

I gave it a three because of the acting. All actors do their best but you can't make a movie that comes apart at the seams like this. I can't even explain to myself why lastexittonnowhere made a t-shirt celebrating this absolute mess. This movie along with driven is one of worst I have seen. But this is one is pretentious.

Absolutely terrible! Worst film I have watched this year. I like Ben Wheatley, I really liked Kill List and Sightseers was fun too, but this takes the biscuit, quite shocking to be honest at how bad it is. The cast are good, but the story is a bunch of mumbo jumbo, Tom Hiddleston had a dream sequence early on, which was quite funny as the whole film seemed like a weird bizarre dream sequence that did not really make sense. The film was trying to be clever, but it was not, it just amazes me what the BFI puts money into and proves to me that its not what the story is about, but more about who you are and who you've got attached to your project, there's an irony about the social ladder here. There was no diversity, even the dog was white, I think it was set in the seventies, so there would have been minorities in the UK then, unless that was meant to be another supposed clever part about the story, hah, hah. As I was watching it, I became more amazed as it went along, I could not believe what I was watching and neither could my friends, was a couple of funny lines "You made him", but not much else was entertaining to say the least all made for approximately $20million!

Ever since Tom Hiddleston became an evil Norse god he can do no wrong in many people's eyes (that's a nod to 'Thor' in case you have no idea what I mean by that). In any case, besides – allegedly – dating Taylor Swift for about five minutes, he's pretty popular right about now. Therefore, a high concept arty piece, brimming with social commentary and with him taking centre stage must be worth a watch, right? Sorry Tom.Now, I like to think that I'm no stranger to the slightly more 'abstract' films. I don't just want to see endless car chases or Transformers movies. I loved 'A Clockwork Orange' and David Lynch's work. However, I just couldn't really get into this. It's based on a book of the same name that's apparently had a script associated with it that's been kicking around various productions companies for years. Now, it's only just been made, despite everything about it screaming that it's set in the seventies.As the title suggests, it's all based in and around a high rise block of flats. The opening scene shows that some sort of catastrophe has befallen the building and those left are living almost in feral conditions. Then we're flung a little further back in time and the film begins proper with us seeing the events which lead up to this social decay.And, Tom Hiddleston shows that he's not just a meanie with a horned helmet, he can also hold his own as a leading man. He does carry the film as the well-to-do tenant of one of the apartments. He's slightly aloof and disdainful of much of what goes on around him – almost carrying himself a little like Patrick Bateman from 'American Psycho,' but never without sinking into quite such a chainsaw-wielding maniac. However, just because he's not trying to feed stray cats to cash machines, doesn't mean there isn't a healthy (or rather Unhealthy!) helping of s3x and violence. In fact… that's really all the film is.It's clear that the film has something to say about society and the way we lived. But it seems to get stuck in a bit of a senseless loop where gratuitous violence is all that's on offer. And, once you've seen one stylised fist fight (or worse!) then you probably don't want to see one in the very next scene as well. Perhaps if this film had been released in the seventies when such sights were a novelty in cinema and would therefore generate enough 'shock' with the public to make it stand out then it might have got a greater following. However, despite the decadent setting and the stylish way it's all filmed, there's not really an awful lot here to see. Yes, fans of Tom himself should enjoy it more than most, but it still feels like an empty Clockwork Orange clone that's been lost in time all these years and has missed its window where it would have been popular.I really wanted to like this and stuck with it hoping that it would finally change pace and pick itself up. However, it just repeats the same cycle over and over again and whatever message it thought it was trying to say gets lost along the way. Probably would have worked better as an art house piece that ran for between 20-30 minutes. It looks nice, but feels hollow. Wait… is that what it's trying to say about life?

High-Rise is basically an adult version of Lord of the Flies. Instead of kids abandoned on an island, we have multiple social strata living into a high-technology (for the standards of the '70s) building in which everything works perfectly. Everything, but human nature, which quickly divides the tenants into hierarchies that degenerate into the exploitation of the "poor" and the exaltation of the "rich". I use quotations marks to divide the "rich" and the "poor" because everyone pays the same rent; so, why do some ones live in the superior luxury floors, while other ones barely survive in the filthy basements? That might sounds like an archaic communist fantasy about war of classes and the uprising of the proletariat... and that's very probable, because High-Rise is based on a novel written by J.G. Ballard, the subversive author of other similarly transgressor books such as Crash, The Drowned World and the anthology The Atrocity Exhibition. For better or for worse, the ideals of High-Rise represent the "progressive" British thought from the '70s, and that justifies the wonderful retro atmosphere achieved by cinematographer Laurie Rose and production designer Mark Tildesley. Unfortunately, the message "the humans are animals ready to return to savagery as soon as the electricity is interrupted" has been repeated too many times... and in more interesting ways. The main problem of High-Rise is that its second half gets repetitive until getting a bit tiring. Director Ben Wheatley and screenwriter Amy Jump rejoice themselves portraying uncountable manifestations of cruelty and barbarism, whether in the shape of grotesque orgies, beatings against the ones aspiring to become revolutionary leaders or the killing of an innocent dog (unfortunately, High-Rise isn't a "pet friendly" film). The message had been left clear since the first half of the movie... but Wheatley and Jump repeat the same ideas over, and over, and over again. High-Rise is a film intended to make us think... but sometimes, it thinks for us, instead of bringing us the tools to draw our own conclusions. On the other hand, it managed to hold my interest, the performances are brilliant, and I also appreciated Clint Mansell's score and the attractive images. Maybe deleting half an hour, High-Rise would have been a potent punch to society's stomach. But with its 120-minute running time, it ends up being as accommodating as the high classes it pretends to denounce.