Uncertainty (2009)

To me, this movie is perfection.

How sad is this?

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This movie had such potential, but it turned out to be just another bore hole. I will never understand where directors and producers think moving forward and backward through time is a good idea. The acting was sub par, the story line was much worse. The movie felt hurried and left the audience with more questions than answers. All in all, I see why the movie grossed 37,000.00There were bad guys and worse guys in the movie, but we learned nothing from them. All we know is that someone wanted a phone returned but the true reason is never revealed. Why the director thought this was a good idea will forever baffle this movie buff.

JGL on the phone to Chinese gangster. 'We're in the bank on the corner of Canal Street.'2 minutes later Chinese gangster arrives at bank.JGL's girlfriend, Caty, in a panic. 'Oh my God! How'd he find us?'JGL 'I don't know.'That just about sums up the nature of this film. They really didn't think it through very well. Indeed, it leaves you thinking very clearly that they had no script for this. Just 'make it up as you go along guys' seems to be the rule here and, well, it comes across as just made up. JGL is good, as he always is, but the rest of the cast went through the movie in 'actor mode'. There is the ubiquitous scene of families all talking at the same time over dinner; out of focus views of twilight in the Big Apple; and a totally unnecessary sex scene. Sure this was all done on a low budget but so was Napoleon Dynamite. I really cannot think of anything positive to say about this film, even though I would genuinely like to do so. One to be avoided folks.

I'll write about the positive and negative aspects of this movie.One positive thing about this movie is the camera work. It is done in decent lighting and really shows the atmosphere that it tries to create. The acting is convincing and not over-acted.The movie is incredibly cliché and shows a huge lack in originality and it also tries to send a political message. Two Europeans in America are chased by a Chinese man with a gun. These Europeans in this movie have feelings and are real persons. The Chinese man is just a criminal without any personality in this movie. Just a plain murderer.This movie still gets a 1 out of 10 for the camera work. It doesn't get a higher score, because it's a very racist movie.

The course of our lives is determined by the countless decisions - both major and minor - we make on a daily basis. So much so that one simple and seemingly insignificant act of choice can set the course for our entire future, including where we'll go to school, who we'll wind up marrying, whether we'll be killed crossing that street or live another fifty years because we took a different route entirely. That is the theme explored in "Uncertainty," a dual-level drama produced, written and directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel.The movie opens with a young couple - played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Lynn Collins - standing on the Brooklyn Bridge, obviously on the brink of making some major decision regarding their future. After a coin flip, one heads in one direction (to Manhattan) and one in the other (to Brooklyn), leading the couple to have distinctly different experiences in what might be thought of as parallel universes. In the Manhattan-based scenario, Bobby and Kate, dressed in yellow, are plunged into a bizarre cloak-and-dagger tale set off by the finding of a cell phone in the back of a cab (a bit like "24" if it were made on an indie-film budget); the other direction leads to a more mundane domestic drama wherein the lovers, dressed in green, celebrate the 4th of July with Kate's family, including the overly critical mother who drives the young woman crazy with her negativity and interference.The different-paths-equals-different-outcomes theme has been explored before, most notably in 1998's "Sliding Doors," but here the why and the wherefore of it all seems to have eluded the filmmakers - as it does us. Each storyline is interesting enough in its own right - and the acting and direction are first-rate throughout - but they fail to come together in any kind of a meaningful way. They literally run along parallel tracks, with no point of convergence from which we can deduce a point - unless it's that bright yellow is probably not the best fashion choice when you're trying to outrun a hit man.Moreover, the movie doesn't lay down the ground rules for the scenario in a very coherent or consistent fashion. The synopsis for the film says that the couple uses the coin flip to determine how they're going to spend that holiday weekend. Yet, it's obviously much more complicated than that, for in one version, Kate is pregnant, but in the other she isn't (or, at least, it's never mentioned). In one, she is the star of a Broadway play; in the other, she says she works at a restaurant. And the two couples obviously live in different parts of town. Perhaps, consistency really is the hobgoblin of little minds and we should be looking at the larger picture here, but, all the same, the movie leaves us with a lot of unanswered questions, which may not necessarily be a bad thing, but it can make for a frustrating experience at times.I recommend watching "Uncertainty" for the risks it takes and the mood it sets (Peter Nashel's evocative score is very helpful in that regard) but, when it comes right down to it, the movie seems a commendable but over-elaborate effort at stating the obvious.