Sublime (2007)

Simply Perfect

Powerful

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

The acting in this movie is really good.

In this garbled mess of a film that tries to be more intelligent than it is, a 40 year old computer technician goes into hospital for what should be a routine colon scan, only for things to get trippy, man... No, seriously.With competent acting, not much seemed to happen as the hot nurse - and she was hot - proved not enough to deter my growing resentment as the badly handled mystery eventually began to unfold, boring my to tears in the process, before things turned incredibly nasty towards the end.I reckon that somebody watched Miike's Audition and thought, "Hey, let's do an ending like that," failing to realise how out of place it was given the lack of warning in the set-up.It's difficult to go into any further details about this bag of crap without somebody sticking a SPOILER cuss on this opinion (since I don't actually write "reviews"), but the only thing you really need to know before watching this film is this: AVOID.Or, you can listen to your gut after the terrible opening and awful dialogue of the following bedroom scene, and turn it off not even 5 minutes in.Believe me, you'd only be sparing yourself from sitting through a very bad film.

I would agree with several of the other messages for this film.Throughout the movie, you might find yourself confused or searching for answers but trust me just sit back and enjoy the ride the end makes this movie sing. So often directors leave movies too open or end them to quick making me feel that I've wasted what could have been 2 epic hours of my life but 6 years after watching this movie I am still excited and still have discussions about possibilities and meanings. I can't promise you that you will love this movie but you should be intrigued. Hope you enjoy!

Back around 1980, when cable TV started its proliferation, it still had that anything goes feel that happens with something new. HBO was one of the first premium channels and along with the usual movies that filled out its limited on-air hours (it was not on 24 hours back then) the network often programmed what could be described as filler content especially on the weekends when it was on the air for somewhat longer stretches. Most of these films were forgettable movies like Ashanti" (boring and lifeless) and "Voyage of Tanai" (truly a WTF movie if there ever was one). But into this mix would sometimes appear movies that did spark interest and sometimes became hits because of their airing on cable. Two films that come to mind are "Over the Edge" (which made a big impact on the girls in my 8th grade class due to Matt Dillon) and "Homebodies", a truly oddball movie about senior citizens becoming homicidal when confronted with the prospect of being evicted from their homes. Both of these films were true finds and could have found life playing commercial stations as well but their presence on cable made their impacts more pronounced because of the lack of commercials and no editing. "Sublime" falls into this category. Apparently a straight-to-video release, it stars what could only be described as second tier TV actors (Tom Cavanagh, George Newbern) and directed by Tony Krantz who had no directorial credits to his name. Surprisingly, the movie plays extraordinarily well. It's suitably eerie, confusing (intentionally so) and most importantly, it makes you care about the main characters especially Cavanagh's George and Kathleen York's as George's wife, Jenny. I will admit that I did not "get" a lot of what is allegedly the films symbolism and frankly the point of the movie really didn't hit me (I kept rewinding it right before the end to hear what Jenny and George were talking about because it seemed to be related to what he does) but to me, it didn't really matter. "Sublime" is not a film that someone just threw together. It has a great atmosphere, is intelligent and thoughtful and is certainly not your run-in-the-mill enterprise.

This was a well acted, well shot horror piece with a good script, well thought-out ideas and an all around competent cast. Visual imagery was impressive, and those concepts that seemed 'borrowed' from other films of its ilk still appeared fresh and original.The one area where this film was lacking was in pacing - using an uneven mixture of uninvolved flashbacks and main story scenes, this film at times felt like plodding cross between the Twilight Zone and the Red Shoe Diaries, as opposed to a legitimate psychological thriller.Recommendations would be for the release of a re-cut version which picks up the pacing and delivers far more of the main storyline, cutting down on the heavy load of unnecessary flashbacks and needless dialog.