The End of Violence (1997)

Excellent, a Must See

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

This is not a mainstream movie, but that does not mean that it is bad. The End of Violence is a very good movie which has quite a lot within its frame work. It is somewhat slow and when watching it for the first time it seems that there are scenes in the movie that could have been left out, they did not seem to add to the overall plot of the movie, and that tends to put me off. These scenes though, namely the poetry reading scenes, do indeed add to the plot in a very subtle way and are very important in the development of the characters, two of whom are minor characters in the movie. Even then, the poetry that is read out depicts the major theme of the movie, and that is the enemy that is within, not the enemy without, and the realisation of the characters that the enemy is not out there, but in amongst us.When watching the movie we must constantly remember the title because that helps us understand what the movie is about. It works in two levels though, in a social level and in a psychological level. The social level of the movie is about a new security system which can monitor all the city of Los Angeles. A man can sit in one room and see almost anywhere in Los Angeles. He watches crimes happen and he watches criminals get caught. The problem with this is that congress does not know about the system and if they found out about it then big problems would happen. They must keep it secret at all costs: it will end violence but at the cost of people's privacy. This seems to reflect Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four where big brother knows everything.The psychological aspect of the movie deals with a film producer name Micheal Max. Everybody knows and loves this guy, but he is not loved by all as he is abducted by a couple of hit men and was about to be executed. Micheal Max has an obsession with violence, he says that when he was a kid he was scared of the movies and then he became a film producer. This suggests that he desires to master violence by controlling it in the forms of movies. Though he tries to master violence, he cannot master his life. His relationship with his wife is falling apart as he just does not spend anytime with her. She begins by just wanting to leave and ends by taking everything.The plot of the movie comes out when he receives an email from somebody containing confidential FBI information. Then he is abducted and one assumes that it is because of the FBI document. This is someway true, but the killers are nothing more than idiots. The film does not reveal who attempted to kill him, or why, but this document remains somewhat important, though we are never told what it is. This movie never really wants us to be sure. It lets us make up our minds about things but does not tell us if we are wrong or not. What we are really doing is watching Micheal Max come to understand and conquer his fear of violence.There are three main male characters, Doc, a forensic scientist who is investigating Mike Max's disappearance, Mike Max, and Ray, the operator of the surveillance system. The characters have little contact in the movie but are connected. There are three women that are directly connected with each of these characters, and two of these women interact with one of the other males characters. Max's wife, the first one, speaks with Doc, but her role is that she drifts further away from Max. The actress is loved by Mike as a friend, but her role is that she builds a relationship with Doc. Then there is Sue, the Mexican cleaner, who works under Ray. They fall in love, but at the end of the movie she exits with Mike Max, after both have given up violence. The casting of the three male characters was done in a way that they all were similar in appearance. These characters were linked in this way and also in a way that they were trying to bring an end to violence. Mike Max has been discussed, Ray is trying to bring an end through the surveillance system, while Doc is a police officer trying to uncover the truth. It is interesting that the police are not interested in the truth, they have their theory and are not at all interested in the truth.There is a lot more in this movie, but to bring it up would mean watching it again and studying it closer. This movie is very good for those who like movies which make you think. The ending isn't conclusive and you don't realise it is there until you get there. It comes as a bit of a shock because there seems to be a lot of things unresolved, but when you look back over the movie you realise that they have been resolved, but not in the way you expect it to be. The movie tells you numerous times that it is not a typical Hollywood ending, such as Mike Max's comment, "I hate those conspiracy movies where the beautiful woman gets killed." This is not a typical Hollywood movie and thus does not have a satisfying ending for those who want one.

Great actors, characters and story building up to a dissatisfying oh-my-god-it-can't-be-yet ending. It's almost a cruel joke that in the movie is an aborted movie production. Am I just not deep enough to see the point? I must be so shallow that it seems like the original writer/director/producer team were all shot before the movie was done and the cleanup crew left more loose ends than a tide of Malibu seaweed. There is a beautiful little existential paradox and message. But we were so much enjoying the story and all the substories and loving the characters that to just quit on us like it did was cruel. The inbred credits led me to expect a much more coherent wrap up.

A movie about the business of making movies in all its vacuity and of recording things on camera. This is Wim Wenders' "Le Mepris" and his "Rear Window", (it's all about looking and not about seeing), and it's full of movie references. Sometimes they are about the only thing to distract you from all the ennui and the lack of anything remotely interesting happening up on the screen. In place of believable characters and a decent script or lines you might want to listen to Wenders fills his screen with images that are supposed to engage us on a movie-buff level. The film's like a game pseudo-intellectuals play; you fill in the blanks and if you can guess the better film the blanks come from, all the better, you get brownie points. In other words, this is pretty terrible, the kind of unmitigated disaster only a great director could make when he starts believing his own hype. I mean, Wenders can't lay the blame entirely on the cack-handed script; after all, he co-wrote the original story with script writer Nicholas Klein. I was going to say it goes deeper than that, (or aspires to), but deep isn't really a word you want to use when reviewing this pile of horse dung. OK, it looks terrific; what more can I say? Oh, except he talked the legendary Samuel Fuller into appearing in it and he's terrible, too.

This film was just shown on United Kingdom television at three o'clock in the morning and it took me totally by surprise as I had never even heard of this movie before. Its a good movie but I just wonder how much of an influence the David Lynch film "Lost Highway" had on the casting of Bill Pullman, he's a decent actor but whatever happened to his career? He seems to play these type of roles very well and its a nice surprise when Gabriel Byrne pops up on-screen. If you get the opportunity to watch this film then its definitely worth a look-in if you need to pass a few hours of time. Often the direction behind the film could be improved and their are some loose-ends which could really do with being tied up but some of the imagery and ideas are of sound mind and as thrillers go this is from a good period in the genre. As registered in the "Vote" section I could only give this film a six out of ten due to the average directing and loose-ends. If you like Lost Highway by David Lynch and also featuring Bill Pullman then "The End Of Violence" is another film you will enjoy