Boring Gate ...

Have you ever been to the cinema and just as the movie is about to start someone REALLY tall sits down directly in from of you, obscuring part of the screen? If you have then you'd be half-way towards understanding the deep negativity that receiving a review disc with burnt in 'Property of' captions partly obscuring the screen engenders. Now imagine that same caption obscuring essential sub-titles when the movie has someone speak in a foreign language. That's what I received and that's what put me in a poor frame of mind from the outset with this god-awful movie. Whether it's really as bad as I felt it to be will never be known because there's not a chance in hell that I'd watch this film again - burnt in captions or not.

Whoever dishes out these review discs is doing a tremendous disservice to the hard-working movie-making community that they supposedly represent. What Director would be happy to see his work savaged in this way? And what do the captions achieve? Do they think we reviewers are going to pirate their precious discs? They're living in another world. This picture has been long available on illegal bit-sharing sites, and it won't be we reviewers who ripped it or who are downloading it. Personally, I won't be attempting to review another disc in this state. Rant over.



Well, to start with it looks intriguing enough. Rough-at-the-edges businessman (Madsen) discusses dark psycho-sexual depravity (only hinted at) with a rough-at-the-edges ex-junky woman (Argento) as he is about to sell out his half of a business to pay off mounting debts. She shoots him in the back and then spends the rest of the movie on the run.



When the shot is fired you feel as if it's the starting gun for something more exciting, but nothing ever really happens. The fact that both the characters we've just seen seem irredeemably creepy, with no one to sympathise or empathise with, means that you end up not caring about either one way or the other.



So what's left to enjoy? Well, Hong Kong cityscapes always look good. The night club scenes end up just being irritating and then there's Asia Argento in her underwear - which seems like pretty poor compensation for lost time enduring the remainder of the film.
One surprise, which soon turns to disappointment, is the casting of Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon dishing out orders (in Cantonese) in the Hong Kong scenes. What she's doing in the movie is anyone's guess but please don't assume her inclusion makes this film any more worthy from an artistic point of view. It doesn't.



French Director Oliver Assayas (Clean, Demonlover) is beloved by some, and detested by many, for his 'slacker' style directing, with sloppy cinema-verite camera moves and what appears to be method / ad-libbed dialogue. But style (whether you like it or not) can rarely compensate for lack of pithy content and that seems to be the problem with 'Boarding Gate'. It really would be more aptly titled 'Boring Gate' , delivering none of the thrills (sexy or otherwise) that the posters and publicity suggested it would. There's no one here that you could care less about, and the narrative is convoluted and improbable.



The net result is that it's a film that starts off slow - and then nearly grinds to a halt. Even the darker aspects here don't quite work, falling hopelessly flat.

I wouldn't advise a purchase and would suggest you avoid even a rental, unless you like Assayas' style and Argento's body so much that you feel like it's worth a punt. It isn't