27 June 2008 @ 10:00Funny Games (2007)

Funny Games (2007) My DVD of Funny Games arrived yesterday, and I had a chance to watch it last night.

A little background first. Funny Games is a remake of a film from 10 years earlier by the same writer/director, Michael Haneke.

There is not a lot I can say about Funny Games without spoiling it for those who haven’t yet seen it, but I will say a few things. Funny Games kept me on the edge of my seat for most of the duration. I truly felt for the victims, and the antagonists were definitely believable. As a matter of fact, I have met some people with similar demeanors who I felt could be capable of such actions.

The acting was superb. Naomi Watts, Tim Roth, Michael Pitt, and Brady Corbet were all believable in their roles. I can’t say I liked Tim Roth’s character of George, but that is not to fault Roth’s acting abilities. And there is something about Michael Pitt that made him perfect for his role as Paul.

The ending was, how can I put this, atypical, unexpected, but not altogether climactic.

All in all, it was an entertaining film, and one that I am glad to add to my collection. My biggest complaint would be picture quality. The picture could definitely have been better. Funny Games is only 3.94GB on a single-layer disc capable of 4.37GB. In this day of dual-layer DVDs, a 111-minute film such as Funny Games could easily be transferred at a higher bitrate to fill a single-layer DVD or even higher still and distributed on a dual-layer disc. There were a lot of compression artifacts, and the picture just wasn’t very sharp at all.