Noise (2007)

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

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.

Yes please, I want Tim Robbins with me everywhere I go. He will stop all those car alarms, building alarms, all the worst traffic noise, and keep me safe from being driven crazy by the noise of modern life. If only! This extraordinarily original film written and directed by Henry Bean utters the same sentiments of the vox populi as were expressed by Peter Finch in Paddy Chayefsky's script for NETWORK (1976): 'I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!' (You may remember if you ever saw that film that Finch used the medium of television to persuade tens of thousands of people all over America to throw open their windows and scream that protest into the streets.) The noise of modern urban life is clearly intolerable, and this wonderful comedic treatment of the subject is full of laughs tempered by the solemn realization that it is all, alas, too true. We have all been beaten down into passive acceptance of the intolerable, and that is the theme of this film: Tim Robbins is mad as hell and he isn't going to take it anymore. So he becomes 'The Rectifier', a kind of anonymous heroic Batman figure who goes round Manhattan disabling car alarms which have gone off on the streets, by smashing the car windows and cutting the alarm cables. This leads to a confrontation with the Mayor of New York, gauchely portrayed by William Hurt as a hectoring bully in a wig of the wrong colour and with an effete manner (amusing: where did that characterisation come from?) Tim Robbins is perfect, absolutely perfect, in the part of the rebel against the noise pollution. He is a master of that dreamy face of the idealist lost in his own quest for some unattainable perfection (in this case, silence). His wife, played by Bridget Moynahan, does not understand or tolerate him. Although she is a professional cellist and should know better, she is above all things a petite bourgeois and reacts as one: she commences an affair and throws him out of the house after saying of his crusade against car alarms: 'How can you do this to me?', with the emphasis on the me. Am I the only one who has noticed it, or are there others out there who have also noticed, that 95% of American movies over the past twenty years have contained angry young women? They are usually angry and vindictive ex-wives, but sometimes, as in this film, they are angry and vindictive wives. What they all have in common is an unquestioning narcissistic arrogance, total lack of rapport with any partner, and a contempt for all men, especially those whom they use as dispensable husband-toys. Is this really going on in life itself, or is it only in the movies? Surely this is a symptom of malaise in contemporary American society of a most troubling kind. It is more troubling to me than the urban noise, frankly. As a marital reject, living on his own in an even noisier neighbourhood (24th Street and Sixth Avenue, help!), Robbins is emotionally rescued by an extremely weird girl who hero-worships him (or at least does so temporarily), played scarily by the Russian/Jewish/American actress Margarita Levieva, who is sometimes a bit difficult to understand because of her accent. She is into sex in a major way and there is a threesome scene which is rather hilarious where she brings back to Robbins's apartment an even wilder creature, a Spanish gal played with droll panache by Maria Ballesteros, whose accent is even more impenetrable. The two gals have an interesting discussion about the relative merits of their private organs, which they take turns examining, while Robbins sits smoking a joint and speculating about the urban nose outside. Levieva is always pontificating about philosophy and quoting Hegel and being an aspiring hyper-intellectual. All of this is wonderfully funny satire, possibly based upon Henry Bean's private experiences, or should I suggest possibly his private parts experiences. There are numerous comedic characters and brilliant minor touches throughout the film where Bean succeeds in giving depth to minor players, with considerable success. Many 'members of the crowd', and even two irrepressible members of a jury, turn miraculously into hilarious characters, as the entire story is littered with the pathos of the multiple stories of the lives of countless supporting players. This is an amazing feat of screen writing and direction, and I wonder whether anyone has really appreciated the extent of Henry Bean's incredible talent and achievement. This film really is a classic, it truly is. Woody Allen ought to take a refresher course in comedy by studying the meticulous construction and realization of this film, which has a freshness and creativity about it which is lacking in, for instance, Allen's MELINDA AND MELINDA. What a pity that Henry Bean has made so few films. Perhaps he is too original, but thank God that he is.

This movie fulfills it's zaniness for about the first 20 minutes or so, but then the gags just get repetitive. It's the same thing over and over – the guy just can't stand the noise from car alarms, vandalizes the car and gets arrested. He leaves his wife then conveniently finds a beautiful girlfriend who finds him another beautiful girlfriend… Tim Robbins almost seems somewhat bored with his character, but William Hurt is great as the despicable mayor of New York.And what's with these luxurious Manhattan apartments. Tim Robbins wife plays the cello and he's in business, so where do they get the money for the 2 floor apartment on the Upper West Side? After he loses his job he still has a large apartment near Greenwich Village?

I would have liked this movie to focus on a lot more than car alarms. It shouldn't have been a comedy either, considering the serious stress caused by modern noise.Depending on where you live, car alarms are a variable nuisance, and this movie dwells too much on them. Alarm owners are at least trying to thwart crime, and they ARE effective if the owner is nearby and alert. In a metropolis like NYC where people can't park near their dwellings, I can see how alarms would be more of an uncontrolled problem.This movie makes it seem like nobody is paying attention to their alarms, which isn't true in many cases. It even semi-glorifies a car thief, making the alarm into the bumbling villain.Subwoofer bass is far more deliberate and has become a form of terrorism on those who endure it. This applies to loud stereos in cars, apartments and condos, or nearby homes, which are completely under the control of perpetrators who belligerently treat their abuse as a "right."Noise seems a lot worse when you know some evil scumbag is in direct control of it, and doing it to snub your "right to quiet enjoyment." Noise should be divided into categories of background, incidental and deliberate, with the latter being a felony if repeated too often.

I've been using IMDb for a few years now, but have never written any reviews before. However, this movie so disappointed me (even with a modest score of 6.4 at the time of writing) that I couldn't keep quiet anymore.Noise is the story of a New Yorker (Tim Robbins)who is so perturbed by noise pollution that he takes on an alter-ego as a as a vigilante, "The Rectifier", and vandalizes any cars he finds with a car-alarm sounding.I take the name of the movie to be somewhat of a misnomer. Although there are one or two instances of other sources of noise being addressed or mentioned, the only true focus of our protagonist is car alarms. Car alarms, car alarms, car alarms. There is really no other focus. When the movie tries to tie other examples of noise pollution to the problem of car alarms, it seems to be just thrown in to give merit to the actions of Robbins' character. Yes, we're all annoyed by noise. Nobody likes the sound of car alarms. Of course we all have that internal urge to take a baseball bat to a shrieking vehicle, and this movie uses that fact, and pretty much that fact alone, to sell this movie. I say 'pretty much' because there is also a blatantly contrived sexual relationship (including a completely needless threesome) which is obviously thrown in for those movie-goers who need such things thrown in in order to enjoy a movie. Honestly, it's eye-rolling.Robbin's character, very shortly into the movie, becomes completely unrelatable. It seems less that he decides not to put up with the noise anymore, and more that by focusing so much on the noise he has begun to lose his sanity. The first half of the movie is essentially the story of how he turns from just an angry, car-bashing dude into this hero of the little guy, The Rectifier. However... the transformation doesn't take place. He just renames himself.I could go on for a while. Annoying generalized social commentary comes in every now and then to add to the pretentiousness of the movie, and the self-satisfied smirk which never quite leaves Robbins face doesn't help either. Overall, I think it's very obvious what this movie is trying to be, as it's pretty much shoved down your throat, but in my opinion, it fails in a big way. Just one guy's opinion, cheers.