Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

This is one of the better films that extrapolates from that horrible day on September 11, 2001 in a moving fictional story. Although sentimental in tone, it is difficult not to admire the stellar cast and the clever plotting of the film.The principal conceit of "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" is the process of a search that is foreshadowed at the start of the film of the young Oskar Schell taking the challenge of his dad to search for a non-existent sixth borough of New York. That search transitions into a search for the missing box that will be unlocked from a key left by the father prior to his death on 9/11.The little kid who plays the role of Oskar was described in the DVD bonus segment as a child genius who learned Mandarin and won a bundle on the television show Jeopardy, prior to being recruited for the film. The mantra of Oskar is "never stop looking"--words that were circled on a newspaper clipping left behind by the father.My favorite character in the film was the Renter, an elderly man from the old country who befriends Oskar and helps him on his quest. Max Von Sydow was terrific in the role of the "silent" character, whose past life is never revealed in the film. Could the Renter be the father of the dad, whose name appears on the logo of the family jewelry business, Schell & Son Jewelers?SPOILER ALERT: The mother character, played effectively by Sandra Bullock, loved the son so much that she was shadowing his every move in the long search through the boroughs of New York for the missing lock. She met with the various Black members on the son's checklist, preparing the people for his visit. Unfortunately, this moving part of the story led to a major plot hole, as the couple who owned the vase and ran the estate sale should have been alerted to the importance of the key by the mother's visit, prior to the arrival of the son. There were other instances where the film stretched credibility. It tended to venture into the area of the supernatural, just falling short of a film like "The Sixth Sense" in the improbable search of young Oscar and the connection of sixth borough plot with the lock-and-key. It was almost as if the Renter could have been a figment of Oskar's vivid imagination. At some point, the filmmakers had the obligation to have everything make sense in such a realistic film.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is a decent movie with a reasonably well developed plot and a talented cast. It is a very sweet, enjoyable adventure that follows a young boy who embarks on a journey after finding a key left by his father, who died in the September 11 attacks. Tom Hanks' scenes are very effective and add great depth to the film, the phone call scene between him and Sandra Bullock is very hard hitting, powerful stuff. It tries to be more than it really is, while it should have simply been handled as a family drama, it strives to me be more. It was clearly written as a much simpler film, but when the studio saw Oscar potential, they made it far more pretentious, making it in to a far less enjoyable experience overall. Oskar is an unlikeable protagonist. He is naive and thinks he is far more clever than he is, which was clearly intended to be his charm, but I the way it was showcased, and how Thomas Horn portrays it, just made him an unpleasant character to follow. While its good, it could have been great. Sweet but pretentious, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is worth the watch if you are looking for a good drama or adventure, just do not go out of your way to see it. A nine year old boy finds a key two years after the death of his dad but must hunt for the lock that matches it. Best Performance: Tom Hanks

Despite the cloying sentiment, emotional manipulation and that hateful kid, "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" has a good story to tell; one dealing with loss and the struggle to make sense of the senseless. I didn't like watching it, but in the hands of better filmmakers, there's the potential for poignancy.It's the exploitative use of 9/11 that ruins it. And I'm one of those least affected by that day.Hanks could've died any number of ways; plane crash, cancer, you name it. It still would've left an autistic child and his mom as a shattered family. The story's still completely intact; nothing's lost. So the images of a man jumping to his death from the World Trade Center are utterly shameless and (worse) feel awkwardly jammed right into the movie. Especially when staged in "artful" slo-mo with that infuriating score.Come on.3/10

This is a brilliant movie and I am personally shocked that the rating is not higher. It makes you smile and cry (I have never cried more in a movie). Movies like this really broaden your perspective. The young actor in this movie is very talented along with the rest of the cast. This helped really feel for the characters especially the little boy, who also is battling autism. I love the bond of the Renter and Oscar. They did a good job at showing that everyone has personal battles. Some scenes were so overwhelmingly powerful and well written that it is no wonder I cried for 2 hours straight during this movie. I would really don't why some people thought it was not entertaining. It isn't some action movie, but you really feel something you can't with other movies. Especially with everything happening today, this movie will inspire you to help make the world a better place.