THE END OF VIOLENCE (33)

Directed by: Wim Wenders

Starring: Bill Pullman, Gabriel Byrne, Andie MacDowell, Loren Dean

The Pitch: A Hollywood director of violent action movies re-thinks his life after almost being killed by unknown enemies ; meanwhile, a research scientist tests a secret system of surveillance cameras which, it's hoped, will ultimately mean the end of violence.

Theo Sez: "Define violence," begins this ambitious, generally ineffective near-embarrassment : excellent advice, which Wenders and Co. might've done well to heed. It works occasionally, at least in evoking a rootless atmosphere of hi-tech anomie, but there's a lack of conviction about it, a dilettantish feel, from the wildly unlikely titles given to our film-maker hero's biggest hits - "Creative Killing" and "Odd Sudden Death" ("or," you can almost hear Wenders adding disdainfully, "whatever else they're calling these things nowadays") - to the lazy, meaningless terms offered when someone does finally define violence ("fear ... absence of love ... emotional revenge"). The whole thing feels somehow limited, out of touch, an enervated party-game for the kind of chatterers who talk in hushed tones of the Inner Cities and pontificate on the socio-political ramifications of gangsta rap without even having heard it ; it feels, to borrow Jonathan Rosenbaum's apposite phrase, like the work of "a talented artist whose view of the world has shrunk to the dimensions of his hotel room". Flat characters, snail-like pacing and terminally banal dialogue ("Maybe what they say is true... You never can go home again") are, obviously, no help at all ; and Sam Fuller's last-ever appearance is just sad.