Coming to a bad end

I enjoyed "Collateral" very much until the final twist. When I found out who the last hit was supposed to be, I almost yelled "Aw come on!" out loud in the theatre. I also knew, much to my chagrin, that Jamie Fox was about to turn into SuperCabbie and save the day. It soured what I found a very effective thriller up to that point.

Another recent example: the totally ridiculous "twist" in the French horror film "High Tension."

"Being John Malkovich" was nearly destroyed for me by the whole twist about the portal that ruined not only the joy of the previous 90 minutes or so, but also the entire character of Dr. Lester, who fell apart in a horrid, Armin-Tamzarian-like twist. Oh, and "The Graduate" I found uninteresting for the most part, but by the time it ended, I was ready to scream. Never before or since have I seen a film collapse in so many ways at once that by the time the ending tries to be bleak and negate the negation of the previous negation, my entire life was pretty much changed.

Additionally, I had the opposite reaction with Amy Heckerling's awful "Fast Times at Ridgemont High", which seems great because it has an excellent, funny ending. But the film is quite a vile piece of misogynistic, smug trash that serves no purpose other than for people to point at the screen and say "HEY, I REMEMBER THE '80S! We played Space Invaders all the time back then! And we listened to Jackson Browne!", but I'm drifting off topic. You do pose an interesting corollary, in that there may be some films whose greatness depends entirely on their endings. In that case, I think "Picnic at Hanging Rock" is a glorious example.

Awesome topic for discussion Jim, and of course I have a few thoughts...

There have only been a handful of films that I think have endings so terrible they negated the entire film for me.
The most memorable for me personally was A.I. I absolutely despise that hollywood ending.

(spoilers)

When the boy/robot was underwater staring at the statue of the blue fairy, I thought it was the most beautiful and poetic way it could have ended, and actually thought it did. When it faded to black, I started to get up out of my seat with a buzz about me that I'd seen a real gem.
Then Spielberg did the Spielberg thing and brought back some ridiculous ending involving highly advanced robots that have somehow created a way to bring the boys mother back (hollywood enough in itself) but only for the arbitrary number of 24 hours (to make sure it has a hollywood heartstring-tugging "goodbye" scene).

(end spoilers)

I remember being ready to walk out I was so offended, but then the cute teddy bear showed up and gave me at least some kind of reason to stay in the theatre.
I believe this to be the worst ending of all time.

One other film that I used to consider one of the most brilliant endings ever, has begun to make me feel it might be the films undoing is The Usual Suspects. At one point the cleverness seemed monumental, but after maybe 5 viewings, I realize all it really does is make me feel I can't trust anything that has come before it, and the whole movie is just a magic trick, albeit a well made one. But it has all the depth of a Vegas illusionists finale.

One more I really hate, and then I'll shut up : )

Unbreakable. This movie really had me going until...
(spoilers)
after the revelation that SL Jackson is really a super-villain, and you think some major hero/villain smackdown is about to happen, we're treated to a bunch of type saying SL Jackson got arrested and sent to a mental institution.
(end spoilers)
Now, I'm not that well versed in comics, but by grounding it in the real world by essentially saying "Oh, he's just crazy. Send him away" doesn't it defeat all the magic it's been building up to the entire running time? Angered me like nothing else.

alright. I'm done.

Shyamalan movies. Things with "mind-fuck" twists. "Seven." "Fight Club." Those kinds of endings, while certainly serving a role and purpose, cheapen films for me. Much like the BEST example ever, "The Usual Suspects," as mentioned above, it feels like a hollow magic trick. I prefer films that involve endings based on emotional and/or internal shifts, resolutions, or transitions, rather than narrative manipulations and revelations. However, narrative is very much a secondary element of film (the primary ones being montage, visual composition, emotional/associative development, and others) in my opinion, and I think that is a minority view.

Most recently, "Venus" was certainly wrecked for me by the ending, which I thought used TERRIBLE music and was extremely cheesy in its attempt to attain an uplifting note to end with. I don't want to ruin it, but the film should've ended just before on the line "How many columns did he get?" It would've been devestatingly effective, since the uplifting quality had already been established by dialogue moments before. However, a sappy cheerful nudge to the sentimental part of some ridiculous theoretical audience had to be tacked on. It was so frustrating! Peter O' Toole's performance deserved better.

The ending to The Wages of Fear is unfortunate not because it was tacked on but because it was supposed to enhance the meaning of the film. The movie should've ended when Yves Montand collapses in front of a massive fire, sweaty and dead-tired, after betraying his friend for money. Instead it keeps going, showing that Montand has no remorse, and his punishment for his sin is brought about by an accidental car crash that could've been avoided. The tone of this final scene is way off, even if the intent is to show the depth of Montand's depravity. The cross-cutting between the dancers and Montand's gleeful face is excessive, and does nothing to drive home the point.

In regards to A.I.:

Can the world get over the ending of A.I. yet? This is one of Spielberg's most important films, and removing the final scene from would ruin the film, not improve it. It is appropriate that the 2000 year jump is abrupt - this is a specific choice, and completely in line with the alienation and discovery associated with science fiction.

David, in the film, is attempting to become a real boy. Ending at the Blue Fairy would negate everything prior: why did the attendees at the Flesh Fair try to save David? Why did was his mother so emotional when she abandoned him in the woods? In the end of the film we see that David is a real boy, that he has a soul - this isn't a Hollywood ending just because it's happy (I would argue that it's not even THAT happy). It is the fulfillment of David's quest, a boy who loves and is loved and is therefore "real." "Make a wish," his mother says. "It already came true," he responds.

The movie is not about robots! Otherwise it should have ended at the Blue Fairy. No, the movie is about people - it questions what makes us human, and what love actually is. It isn't a twist that David's mother says that she always loved him, but just a reconfirmation that David's humanity was always there. His father says "If he was created to love then it's reasonable to assume he knows how to hate." His mother refuses to destroy him out of love, and in so doing creates a walking time capsule that aids future inhabitants of Earth (robots who care about things, have feelings) in discovering "the purpose of existence."

A.I. is a complete film.

Maybe I'm the only one here who even remembers this movie, but I thought 'Changing Lanes' was a nice little morality play that really dealt with the difficulty of 'doing the right thing' in modern life ... until the last scene. The movie had a complete arc, stayed painfully true to its characters, and forced its protagonists to live with the consequences of their faults. And then copped out with a tacked-on 'But then everything turned out OK in the end' ending. Completely false and unearned.

I was also frustrated by the deletion of the original ending of 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.'
(spoilers ahoy)
The story was supposed to end with Joel and Clementine in a perpetual loop of falling in love, growing to hate each other, and then erasing each other entirely from their memories. In the original script, we discover that they have been through this cycle dozens of times without having any idea. In the movie, though the repeating wipe-out gives a *tiny* hint of this, the movie ends on a fundamentally optimistic note that I didn't think fit with the rest of the movie (or the totally mismatched characters). What should have been a tragedy about refusing to learn from mistakes ended up being some sort of 'Love is better the second time around' fable.

... And yes, 'Unbreakable' has maybe the worst 'Lets wrap this up, then, shall we?' ending text-slide of all time

Definitely Fight Club, though sometimes I'll go as far as to blame the entire third act.

A.I.'s ending used to, but after rewatching it a few times, I can't see it ending any other way.

An easy one is Return of the King, though upon rewatching the film, there are a lot of things throughout that ruin it for me.

Oh, and the first time I watched Eyes Wide Shut (the "easy explanation" scene), but only the first time.

Truly great topic Jim and one I find myself thinking about a lot. I have to say I completely disagree with you about “Children of Men”, I thought it worked beautifully because it answered some, but not all questions and had it a little bit both ways, but to each his own.

My best two examples of endings that ruined movies are first David Fincher’s “Fight Club”. (Spoiler warning) So after their club has gotten as far as it has and caused all the destruction it has, Ed Norton decides he wants out, so he shoots himself in the head and that kills Brad Pitt, but it doesn’t kill himself and he walks off into the sunset (barely figuratively) with Helena Bonham Carter. What the hell kind of ending is that? First of all the movie mostly sucked up to that point anyway, but when you add that ending in it puts it in my all time bottom 5. My second example is the Wachowski Brothers “The Matrix”. With everything that’s gone before it in the movie I guess I was just disappointed in the ultra-cliché that is the ending sequence. So Neo is dead and Trinity comes over and says “No you can’t be dead, because I love you” (naturally with everything in the background in slow motion) and Neo says “Whoa wait you’re right I’m not dead, whoa, and I can understand the Matrix now, totally whoa!!” and then it ends in a shootout. What a load of crap to end a decent movie up to that point (although a movie that was just trying to be what “Dark City” was).

And of course the best two examples in Spielberg’s masterful catalog, the previously mentioned “A.I.” and “War of the Worlds”. “A.I.” just didn’t know how it wanted to end and that’s what hurt it the most, “WotW” however, had a great ending I thought (with the bacteria stuff) but nearly ruined the whole movie with the family reunion at the end. I have no problem with Tom and Dakota making it to their family (although somehow the family house is the one in the city of Boston that isn’t destroyed), I just have a problem with the son still being alive. If he’s alive you completely negate the experience and empathy that the audience has for Tom Cruise losing one of his children and doing his all to not lose both. Seeing as how the son exits at around the halfway point, Spielberg negates about half the movie, weak. You could say Spielberg did the same thing with the graveyard sections of the endlessly brilliant “Saving Private Ryan” but I’ve blocked those parts out of my mind so I wouldn’t know what you were talking about.

Complaining about the ending to the first Pirates of the Carribean movie may be a cop out, since the whole thing was about 1/2 - 1 hour too long. But the ending really bothered me because while the characters and even the filmmakers acknowledge Orlando and Kiera should be pirates, at the end they don't follow Jack Sparrow. I feel like I would have liked the movie a whole lot better if they jumped aboard the Black Pearl with him.

The other type is the Empire Strike Back style ending where you're just pausing for a sequel. I feel like this is tolerable in Star Wars and even Lord of the Rings, but there are too many sequels today and too many films end weakly just to leave the door open for them. I would classify the ending of the second Pirates movie as this type. After a way to long adventure to nowhere, the film confirms that nothing has really happened by bringing people back to life.

To dig up something you talked about last year ... .

The American theatrical release of The Descent rendered the movie sloppy, rote, meaningless. I don't think it ruins the movie, but it demeans it significantly.

The original coda follows through on what the rest of the movie promises, gives us some understanding of the primary character's state of mind, and is beautifully elegant.

An old girlfriend and I used to say films like these were afflicted with "Twinkie Dessert Syndrome" (TDS). I think this came after a screening of Nicholas Roeg's The Witches, which has one of the most tacked-on looking happy endings I've ever seen; I think it was even shot on a different film stock.

Hitchcock's Suspicion is ruined for me by its ending (not, of course, the ending originally planned).

Spoilers follow
If we are to accept that Cary Grant's sinister behavior has been not homicidal but suicidal all this time, then that means the Joan Fontaine character has been so self-absorbed, and such a crummy wife, that she has had no clue that her husband was this depressed. The movie becomes the story of her failing him, and of a relationship doomed by lack of communication and mutual understanding. To have these two drive off into the figurative sunset at the end of the movie is to doom them to the perpetuation of a dysfunctional marriage.

End spoilers

The only good thing to be said about the studio-imposed "happy" ending is that it gives the film a little complexity that it wouldn't otherwise have had. It makes the title actually make sense.

Regarding AI, this is one of those movies where I felt an it-was-a-dream ending would have made much more sense--that is--

Resume spoilers
--if we find that the kid dreamed his reunion with his mother and is really still stuck there under the sea, daydreaming to while away his lonely eternity. That would also have explained why his regenerated adoptive mother was so unprecedentedly sweet and loving to him: this was all in his mind. I was really ticked off that we were supposed to swallow that this actually happened.

How did I know Spielberg would be lambasted in a discussion of bad endings? While I completely agree with Jim about War of the Worlds, especially considering how utterly relentless the rest of the film is, I totally disagree with Jordan's take on A.I. Here we have an example of a film that deliberately and consciously confounds the elements of narrative and character. Many people seem to refuse to believe that perhaps the film was designed to feel "false" in a lot of ways, including its ending. I think when Spielberg's name is tacked on to a film, often times that invites viewers to interpret its images within a strongly mediated "Spielberg filter," thus preventing any of his movies from transcending the popular representations of what Spielberg movies are.

While Hook, Jurassic Park, and War of the Worlds, and to an extent, Minority Report have blatant Hollywood Happy Endings, I think a great deal of Spielberg's films are misinterpreted according to the skewed perception of his films in the media. I think now his endings are a struggle for him, but they only feel more false now (e.g. Minority Report, War of the Worlds) because his films are moving into more daring territory, and fe feels dogged by an image that he never really lived up to but strangely and self-consciously feels as though he has to.

I was actually planning on writing a post in the future about the nature of endings in narratives, in particular cinema. I believe A.O. Scott wrote (maybe in his amazing review of A.I.) that nothing is more awkward in the viewer's relationship to a narrative than an ending. Even if we have a "good" ending, the ending itself in its providing closure (or perhaps not, which still essentially provides some closure) makes it false.

I certainly don't know what it is that makes some endings more easy to swallow than others, but I think there's more to it than "it doesn't fit with the themes of the movie" or "it's too happy/sad/any other emotion." I think people's pickiness about an ending being too anything is what's really interesting about studying endings in narrative. What does it say about the relationship of the narrative and the individual experiencing/watching/reading the narrative?

A great example for me is "Donnie Brasco", a movie which is superb, with a mediocre ending. The ending doesn't ruin the movie, but I really wish some of the scenes at the end had been edited differently. Al Pacino's exit is so great. I think the film would have been suprerior with him closing the door, cut to black, gunshot. The end.

But I suppose it was Johnny Depp's story, so they had to end it with a scene featuring his character. Still - it's something that could have been tightened up.

Surely the worst ending of recent years was the otherwise admirable L.A. Confidential.

*spoiler*

Did ANYONE believe Crowe could have survived? And did anyone think his survival was in keeping with what went before?

*end spoiler*

And Spielberg has a terrible history of closing shots that are the visual equivalent of being clocked with brass knuckles. A rose on a grave? an American flag waving in the breeze? in either instance, what was the purpose of such mind-numbing obviousness? In both cases, this bathos lingered in the mind to the point of obliterating good sequences that had gone before.

The first time I saw The Ninth Gate, it was an exclusive "reel boy's cut". At the very end, just as a piece of (computer-animated) paper was beginning to slide off, the movie reel got stuck and the current frame caught fire and burned away. For a second I thought I had seen the most original and creative movie ending ever conceived.
Since the last minute of the film disappointed everyone, I thought this particular cut (which removed the last minute and credits) was inspired, and I wish it had happened elsewhere.

I may be laughed out of the room for saying I enjoyed even part of this film, but I thought Ang Lee's HULK was great until the final 15 minutes, when instead of ending it, it turned into a special effects extravaganza that doesn't really explain itself.

Bad endings only really bother me if I felt like the entire movie was leading up to that one moment. For example, I didn't really groove on the last 10 minutes or so of The Departed, but the ending never really felt like a destination that the entire film was building toward. It was just the natural progression of the plot.

Conversely, I hated the ending for 'The Prestige' (slight spoilers), only because the entire movie had been building up to the secret of the one great trick, only when I found out what it was I was deeply disappointed. That ending lessened my opinion of the entire film because everything was leading up to that one moment of discovery.

To put it metaphorically, The Prestige is like trudging up a hill in San Francisco to get to the pizzeria you like, only to find out they're closed on Sundays, thus negating the whole trip; while The Departed is akin to driving on a beautiful mountain road to the same pizzeria with the same result. In the first instance, the trip was about the destination. In the second, the trip was the great part, the destination merely a slight detraction.

First example that comes to mind for me is Minority Report. Loved the film, and was amazed Spielberg had the guts to end it on such a dark note. And then the sinking feeling as I realize that's not going to be the case. I remember sitting there, wondering if I should be pissed at Spielberg for being unable to avoid his crowd-pleasing instincts, or the studio for insisting on a happy ending. Either way, I felt like it was completely tacked-on, and was spliced in from some other film. As far as I'm concerned, the movie ends with ***SPOILER*** Cruise getting locked away.

Minority Report. Loved watching it, and was surprised that Spielberg had the guts to end it on such a dark note. Then the sinking feeling as I realize that's not going to be the case. I remember sitting there, wondering if I should be pissed at Spielberg for being unable to resist his crowd-pleasing instincts, or the studio for insisting on a happy ending. Either way, I felt the ending was just tacked-on, and was spliced in from a different film. As far as I'm concerned, the story ends with ***SPOILER*** Cruise getting locked away.

How about HEATHERS? Even the writer and director agree on the commentary track that the ending, with Martha circling around Veronica on her scooter, talking about going out and renting some new releases, is a big letdown from the rest of the film.

I'm not the first to mention Shyamalan--but I have to admit I enjoyed "The Sixth Sense," because the revelations at the ending (which I'd figured out as early as watching the trailer) did have emotional resonance for me, no matter the gymnastics the plot had to perform to set the "twist" up. No, I save my hatred and revulsion for "Signs," which is still my pick for worst movie of the decade. The ending fails on so many levels--the resolution of the plot is illogical at best, and the less said about Shyamalan's stab at theology and meaning, the better. I'm not even a religious man, but I was offended by everything that movie had to say, and the way Shyamalan had to stack the deck to say it. I feel this kind of ending is far worse than that of, say, "War of the Worlds"--that movie's conclusion feels tacked on and thoughtless, which only makes it similar to any number of other films. But Shyamalan's ending reveals the whole picture to be corrupt. What a joke.

One film that I always hated the ending to, though at the time I liked the rest, though I grew to dislike it in most of its entirety, is The Breakfast Club. The ending where everyone pairs up seemed forced and unlikely to me. I think it should have ended showing the five at school on Monday ignoring each other just like they always had before. Though I didn't think the movie Vanilla Sky was working even before the ending, I don't think any "It was all a dream" or "It's being narrated by a dead guy" has worked since "The Wizard of Oz" and "Sunset Blvd."

Jim, have you read Daniel Gilbert's Stumbling on Happiness? (BTW, he's a psychology professor at Harvard not a self-help guru as the title might mislead you to believe.) In it he writes about how a final impression can color an entire experience. For him Schindler's List was ruined by the final sequence of survivors laying stones on Schindler's grave. For me, that movie was nearly ruined by the "I could have saved more" scene.

Spielberg does seem to have difficulty ending his films. I agree with you, Jim, about War of the Worlds and with Jordan about A.I.

The multiple endings of TLOTR: Return of the King tainted the entire experience.

I was probably most angered by the ending of Pleasantville because it had so much potential. It had the opportunity to explore the ambiguity of free will in a way similar to A Clockwork Orange but settled on being pedantic. If people transform from black-and-white into color when they do things not seen on a '50's sit-com, then why weren't the thugs resorting to violence becoming color? And the final shot implying that Joan Allen's character will live happily ever after with her husband and her lover was ridiculous. I left hating the movie, even though I had loved it for two-thirds of its running time.

In defense of the ending for A.I.:

Conventional wisdom has it that Spielberg mucked up, in his usual way, what was supposed to have been Kubrick's original, dark, brooding ending. What most people don't realize is that what you saw was always Kubrick's original idea for the ending of this movie. Kubrick wanted Spielberg to direct it because ultimately, he felt it was closer to Spielberg's sensiblities as a director than his own. I believe that the unfair slagging of A.I.'s ending is a case of Spielberg's previous filmograpny working against him. Most people saw a saccharine, "happy" ending where David gets his wish. They overlook that he only gets the illusion of that wish and the ending is much darker than the surface of what you see.

Remember that by this climax, humanity has died out. Gigolo Joe's prediction has come true that man's creation (the "mecha", a sentient creature that does not consume natural resources) has long outlived the creators. They had adapted and persevered because they could survivie the geological changes while living creatures could not. They have become archeologists studying the previous civilization and trying to decipher the one thing they could never understand: human emotion. (One assumes the "David" mecha ended up a spectacular failure for all families who bought one, and the implementors never tried the "human emotion" thing again.)

The ressurection of the mother of a facade, engineered by the future mechas, in order to study human emotion at work. Notice how the Monica is not the Monica from the first part of the movie, but rather David's idealized, pre-programmed concept of what a mother should be. This was set up at the beginning of the film when that female engineer questioned, "if a robot can be programmed to love, what obligation does the a person have to love it back". David had been programmed to receive love as well as give it. But the mother character, the one who activated David's love with that seven word code, never returned that emotion. This left the David "mecha" in a perpetual loop. The only way to break that loop was for mother to return that love. (And with the mother long dead, this left a surreal clone recreated from DNA and David's memory banks.) Notice how his eyes slowly close when she says, "he loves you". David's function has been fulfilled and he begins to shut himself down. He "dies" at the end of the movie alongside his mother.

So the conclusion, while on the surface, seems like some weepy reunion similar to what you saw at the end of The Color Purple or Empire of the Sun (again, this Spielberg's previous filmography working against him for this movie), what you are really seeing is a scientific expiriment at work. Cold, heartless scientists observing "people", similar to the way the humans in the first two hours coldly responded to the "mechas". It's left unexplored if the observing mechas got what they wanted from their expiriment, but then it's David's story, not theirs.

Many critics, such as Roger Ebert, felt the movie left them cold because they were asked to love a mechanical object. I always believed that Spielberg (and Kubrick) was not asking people to love David, but rather presenting the situation to the audience and asking them "could you love Daivd? Would you love David?" You have some people who would love a car more than they would their own son, i.e. Cameron Frye's father from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Ultimately, A.I. is a reflection of humanity, on whom (or what) we love and whether or not we need to feel loved in return.

And besides, you'd have to be a robot not to get choked up when Teddy crawls up on the bed as the camera pulls out.

You seem to be addressing in part the question of a movie's implicit agreement with the audience to provide what it promises to provide. That being so, the question is not so much whether a movie has a decent ending - if it doesn't promise one, the lack of one is irritating, but doesn't ruin the movie.

On the other hand, "Basic Instinct" has a detective-story plot and a detective-story style, all of which implicitly promises a solution to the central mystery. That, I think, is why people reacted with such outrage to the famous last shot of the ice pick. The movie promised a solution and delivered confusion. It wasn't all that great to begin with, but then it went and cheated. Ruined whatever credibility it started with.

Okay, in all fairness, if I'm going to submit a lengthy rebuttal to somebody else's pick for a "bad ending", I might as well supply my own example to your original request.

And interestingly enough, my choice is Spielberg's follow-up to A.I.., Minority Report. Now I do admire that movie very much, and I don't go so far as to say the ending "ruined" the movie for me, but there is a significat omission at the very end that casts a pall over the central question that Minorty Report was asking.

It comes down to that age old argument, liberty versus safety. Would we rather live in a society where we are protected from murder even if it comes at the cost of people being arrested and detained indefinitely without trial for the intention? ("No, he may not have set off that dirty bomb in that apartment complex if downtown Chicago, but he was gonna.") At the end of Minorty Report, corruption, scandal and murder ends Pre-Crime once and for all. We get a montage of everybody getting their respective "happily ever afters", the pre-cogs are shown living a life of freedom far away from the murderous visions of society. The camera pulls out showing a lush meadow as the John Williams score swells to a crescendo. What we don't get, what was orignally supposed to be there, was one final caption stating that since the fall of Pre-Crime, over a hundred murders had been commited in Washington D.C., and with that, the central question of the movie is negated. I mean, were we to believe that even the Pre-Crime was no longer around to prevent murder, the citizens of D.C. had learned their lesson and cut it out with the killing thing? C'mon!!!

Because after all, if ending Pre-Crime means a peaceful fadeout as the sun sets, why was it even there to begin with? Why bother with the "liberty vesus safety", if the safety part isn't even a factor in the equation. See the ending is happy. Happy, I say. Well, not so much if you are the victim of any of the murders commited since the fall Pre-Crime.

The reason why we have the "liberty versus safety" issue is because safety is an appealing alternative to liberty. Disagree with them all you want, right or wrong, there are no shortage of people who have no problem living in a police state if it means they can walks the streets without fear. ("Yeah, look at my e-mail all you want, it's not like I have anything to hide.") Locking up a person without due process in an unquestionable wrong. But if locking up that person without due process saves lives, or one life even, the question is not so black and white.

So instead of an ending that challenges the audience and inspires debate, Spielberg sidesteps that issue so that people can leave the theater on an upbeat note. Pity.

I can't believe a critic like you was ever taken in by a single minute of War of the Worlds. Never mind the ending, the whole film was pure Hollywood cheese.

The story arc between the Cruise character and his kids was such generic Spielberg crap, just repeating the same old tedious family values and messages in such a heavy handed and obvious way.

At the start his kids don't like him (they prefer their stepdad, which is virtually the plot of Liar Liar) but by running away from some aliens he learns how to be a good father and a better man! Uuuugh.

His son wants to volunteer for the army, after that extremely cringeworthy exchange between Ray and Robbie "i don't want you to go!" "this is something I have to do!" he runs off to join the soldiers in a valley, which is then NUKED, but his son manages to survive this and get back to Boston.

On top of this Cruise is such a ham actor, without a decent director to reign him in he just hams it up.

As for it being "post 9/11" the only reference there seemed to be was "is it the terrorists" apart from that it was pretty much like every other disaster movie.

And the narration at the end 'God put the aliens there to test whether humans deserved to live on the planet' wtf nonsense. The original HG Wells version made a lot more sense - Mars was running out of natural resources so they invaded Earth.

Spielberg has the aliens living underground for millions of years waiting to come out. In those millions of years waiting the aliens never thought that there might be bacteria in the air that they're not immune to, which might kill them. Millions of years planning and they never thought of that.

That's the main problem with the film; besides all the cheese, its just really stupid. Spielberg is definetely the most overrated filmmaker of all time.

Going to have to disagree with you about "Children of Men," Jim. The movie is about hope in the face of despair, after all, and the sound of laughing children seems to fit into that schema quite well. I think it would have been just too cruel to leave Kee on that boat in the fog at the end. Cuaron's film is, despite everything else, one that believes in optimism and hope.

And several commentators have already pointed to the most egregious maker of ruinous film endings: Shyamalan. It worked with "The Sixth Sense," and, at least for me, "Unbreakable," but after that got ridiculous.

Does anyone want to burn a sacred cow? Cause I think the psychologist's explanation at the end of "Psycho" is completely unnecessary and ruins what would otherwise have been a great ending. Yes, the actual last scene with Norman in his cell is great, but the ten minutes of exposition just beforehand just destroy the pacing at the end of the movie. We should go from the fight in the basement, to a much briefer wrap up at the police station, to the final scene.

On A.I.: I used to hate the ending, too, but have rethought the entire film since reading Jonathan Rosenbaum's review of it (which I believe is available in his collection "Essential Cinema"). I'm still not sure how I feel about the movie, but I'm beginning to understand what Speilberg was doing, and it wasn't purely sentimental goo like "War of the Worlds."

The Village. The ending undid the entire film, which I was actually enjoying up until the big reveal. It took only a few seconds before I began to detest the entire film.

One note on AI, since it was posted about before. My understanding is that the goofy ending that was mentioned was actually Kubrick's original ending, not a Spielberg tack-on. It didn't ruin the film for me, but I would have liked it better had it ended with him on the bottom of the ocean.

Spielberg routinely fucks it up at the end but those two with Cruise are the biggest examples. "War of the Worlds" at least was SO good up until Tim Robbins showed up (and even parts of that are decent) that it lives on stronger than "Minority Report" because the latter's last act is, well, about as literal as it gets. It distrusts the audience's capabilities and that's more annoying, for me. Still, I could watch those movies again today, right now.

re: Pleasantville

And the final shot implying that Joan Allen's character will live happily ever after with her husband and her lover was ridiculous.

You misinterpreted that as a happy ending. It was meant to be ambiguous. Now that they were out of their black and white existance, they had the freedom to be themselves instead of playing the part the were supposed to have played. But with freedom comes complication (another liberty versus safety argument). The ending was not to suggest that Joan Allen was going to live happily ever after with both men, but now that she's in the delicate situation of having two men in love with her and she's torn between the two of them. Look carefully how that final shot is framed. It's not a long shot where we see all three of them sitting on the park bench at the same time. It's a close-up that focuses on one face at a time. The camera is on William H Macy. He says that he has no idea what's going to happen, it pans to Joan Allen, and when it pans back, Macy has been replaced by Jeff Daniels, who remarks "neither do I". Now that their lives aren't pre-scripted, the safety net is gone and people are going to get hurt. This was foreshadowed when Tobey Maguire warned that life outside of Pleasantville is scary is it is liberating.

It would have been an even better ending, though, if they played the original Beatles "Across the Universe" instead of the wisty Fiona Apple cover version.

Tom, I will join your sacred-cow barbecue. I completely agree with your observations about the ending of Psycho, which is why the lengthy send-up at the end of De Palma's "Dressed to Kill" works so well.

And since I have some matches left over, let me say this. As one of maybe 1100 people who saw Blade Runner in its original release and loved it then, that "director's cut" ending left me furious. The entire point, and beauty, of the film is that Rutger Hauer's replicant is ultimately more human than the man hunting him. Imply that Ford is also a replicant, and you've turned the whole meditation on the nature of humanity into a meaningless sci-fi fable about a bunch of robots.

Finally, though I love Red River, I think Hawks just plain chickened out with that ending. He liked both his characters so much he couldn't bear to have them enact the tragedy the movie was pointing to.

"Brokeback Mountain" is a beautiful film, but it has a terribly disappointing conclusion. Killing off Jake Gyllenhaal's character is very heavy-handed. I never read the short story, but if it has the same ending, I have a beef with that too.

I've got to say, I've never been able to re-watch "the Limey" because of its denouement. *spoiler* I think the ending, with the old clip of Terrence Stamp singing, would have been exquisite if he had fulfilled the revenge fantasy of the movie and killed Peter Fonda.

Re: AI

People also tend to forget that Kubrick was fond of saying that a world populated by machines would be an improvement.

With that in mind, the ending of AI may seem sappy but it's also a condemnation of humanity. Those futuristic robots showed David the very thing all of the humans in the film were incapable of showing him: compassion.

They read his memories, understood his plight and felt sorry for him. They built a replica of his mother so that hopefully after all those years of sadness he could finally be happy.

In doing so, the movie just slapped every human being in the audience for being grossly inadequate to the task the machines were able to perform so admirably.

As a human being, I have a hard time seeing that as a "happy" or facile ending. I too, liked the dark beauty of ending it at the bottom of the ocean with the blue fairy, but that would not have been Kubrick's film.

I don’t particularly agree with the following, but many feel Mookie taking the money from Sal at the end of DO THE RIGHT THING undermines what came before. Also, I read someplace that Academy Award winner Michael Ardnt’s impetus for writing LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE was his desire to create something with an insanely happy ending. Too insanely happy, I still think. And STRANGER THAN FICTION, a movie ostensibly about endings, cops out just a tad. BABEL and MAGNOLIA both sputtered to a close, so maybe there’s something closure-averse in the DNA of ambitious ensemble character pieces. And who finds CONTACT satisfying?

Far and away the worst ending I've ever sat through: Dr. T and the Women, directed by Robert Altman.

SPOILERS

Richard Gere is driving away from the fiasco of a wedding when a tornado sweeps him into Mexico, where he is pressed into service to deliver a baby.

END SPOILERS

This had nothing to do with the previous 115-odd minutes, revealed nothing about the character, and was one of the most egregious uses of deus ex machina I've ever seen. It may be the only time an Altman movie rang false to me, which made it all the more unpleasant.

I have to agree with "Signs" as one of the worst endings of all time, and here I mean the entire third act which has to be the biggest cinematic kick-in-the-nuts of the past decade. Part of it my own fault. I liked Night up until then, and because I liked him so much, I gave him credit for making an "incredibly thoughtful movie which examines the absurd ways in which we all form false and irrational beliefs." I had a big smile on my face thinking that for the first time I could recall, I was wacthing an actual Hollywood movie that _didn't_ say: "Everything will be OK if you just believe." And then came the third act which said: "Everything will be OK if you just believe." And I thought, "You went all this way to say the same damn thing that every other Hollywood movie made before you has to say?!?!?!" I guess I have to give Night credit for the ultimate twist: for two acts he convinced me he was making a clever, insightful film, but, voila, big twist, he was really making a dumb-ass movie. ANd, really, if the wife hadn't said "Swing away" as she was dying, would Joaquin Phoenix have stood there with a bat in his hand and an alien approaching thinking "Damn, what the hell should I do with this bat in my hand and an alien approaching? If only someone could give me a hint!"

As always, coming in on the tail end of a discussion...completely agree about Fight Club and The Village.

I agree with Jim on No Way Out, but that one is easy to fix via do-it-yourself editing. I like the rest of the movie enough that I don't start watching until a few minutes in (after the intro to the awful frame story ends) and stop watching with Kevin Costner walking down the hallway with a bloody arm.

The Last Samurai: I really like this movie but the ending is an abomination. All of the gravity of the narrative and of Cruise's performance are completely destroyed by that final scene on the battlefield. Cruise's character needed to fall with his fellow samurai. What the filmmakers give us instead is utterly trite.

And by the way, I'm completely in agreement with those arguing that AI's ending sucks. Someone in this discussion is saying that this ending was part of Kubrick's orginal vision for the film. I'd like to know where there is any evidence that actually supports this claim.

"The Limey" is pretty fucking perfect.

I'll second the person who mentioned "High Tension"/"Haute Tension," the French horror film. The ending twist is pretty much physically impossible to justify with the goings-on prior.

(possible spoiler)
For instance, there's one scene where a character would have to be, in essense, involved in a car chase with him/herself.
(end spoiler)

As a horror movie fan/reviewer/etc., I thought the movie was tremendous. Until the end, which was a jaw-dropper.

And I'm not allergic to happy endings. Just ones that don't make sense.

Re: Kubrick and AI

I spent a few seconds searching and found this quote (below) from Brian Aldiss, the author of the original short story on which AI is based, which seems reasonable enough. I've read quotes to this effect from numerous places over the years. The claim is a simple one, Kubrick believed machines would be an improvement over humanity. The ending of AI is in line with that vision.

As you may recall: Human being's are extinct and have been replaced by superior more conscientious and compassionate beings who in their benevolence attempt to grant David (one of their own kind) his one wish and alleviate his suffering.

"The director's creative vision, meanwhile, is clearer than ever. "Stanley embraces android technology," Aldiss notes, "and thinks it might eventually take over - and be an improvement over the human race.""
-excerpt from http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/5.01/ffai_pr.html

Shymalan's been covered with no disagreements from me--Sixth Sense: ending gimmicky but still worked, Unbreakable: awkward but didn't destroy film, Signs and Village: made me not interested in seeing that lady film--and Spielberg....that still needs a lot of sorting out. I haven't seen A.I. in a long time and only once, but as I remember I thought the ending was the best part of a fair film. It struck me as an intended happy ending by Spielberg, based on a misreading of Kubrick, and one that any normal grown-up should find very bleak, indeed. I don't really mean to criticize Spielberg's eternal childlike wonder. It is usually a strength, even in a mostly adult suspense film like Jaws. But in A.I. it struck me as so far out of place as to go around the circle to perfect. Kubrick's machines were just Spielberg's happy toys.

As far as The Usual Suspects goes, I think its a bit of a cheat to say the ending seemed contrived the fifth time you saw it. If ever a movie was created to get you just once this was it. And what's wrong with that? Besides, you also have to remove all the imitators from the equation.

I neither loved nor hated the ending of Children of Men, finding it suitably ambiguous. I think it's more about the possibly imaginary ship, the UN in my reading, being in a fog, then the heroine. The children's laughter seemed less like hope than a plea. Anyway, ambiguous, so keep discussing.

I really hated the end of Little Miss Sunshine which many have specifically adored. When Arkin was teaching her the strip-tease I was wary. When it actually made it to the stage I thought, "uh-oh", and when the family jumped up there I slid onto the floor. It didn't ruin a film that was more character than plot driven, really, but it sure took it off my Best Picture list.

I agree with Patrick that Dr. T and the Women has one of the worst endings ever, but it hardly ruined the movie, since it was already sucking pretty hard by then.

And HM, I hard forgotten about Contact. Man, that ending blew and ruined the entire movie.

And I completely agree with h.l.limore in thinking that Last Samurai's ending was a betrayal of all that had come before. It's hard to like a movie where you leave that frustrated.

And just to chip in to the A.I. debate, for me it's not a question of the tone or meaning of the ending, it's that like LOTR: Return of the King it ends at least five times. I was just ready for it to be over by the final one.

Sure, sure it's fun to rag on Speilberg, but did Davies watch War of the Worlds? "Aliens living underground for millions of years" is wrong. It was clearly shown that the aliens rode the lightnig down into the ground. Try to know what you are talking about, before you talk smack.
Anyhoo, I was really enjoying The Village till the twist... First movie I wish I could unwatch, as papa Roge said.

Though I haven't seen War of the Worlds, that image reminds me so very much of this one from Tarkovsky's Stalker. I can't put it out of my mind.

RE: "I think the psychologist's explanation at the end of "Psycho" is completely unnecessary and ruins what would otherwise have been a great ending. "

Agreed! The bit in the psychiatrist's office is almost embarrassing. I can see how, in 1960, some "explanation" was probably considered necessary - not for the murders so much as for Norman's crossdressing - but I think it prevents "Psycho" from being one of Hitchcock's absolute greatest. It may sound like blasphemy, but I wouldn't mind if someone took a pair of scissors to that little segment.

The Godfather Part III
Ok, this is more of a minor gripe than a "totally unravels the last two hours" kind of ending, but the final shot, where an aged Michael simply sits alone in a chair and falls dead...what's the point? We already know his life/hopes/etc are ruined. It's like Coppola was thinking, "well this is such a *grand saga* at this point that it just wouldn't be complete without The Death Of Michael Corleone!" I suppose it could be argued that it's intended as a way of contrasting Michael's life & death with his father's. But it still seems really unnecessary.

X-Men: The Last Stand
I know, a lot of people (and I'm one of them) would say that this film had many problems besides just the ending. And maybe I should know better when it's a comic-book movie. But I felt like they threw out whatever shred of worth they had going for the film when Magneto tipped over the chess piece at the end. Yes, "surprise" comebacks are nothing new with comics, but this pretty much made the entire plot a waste of time. I mean, I assume that if it stopped working on Magneto, then it would probably fail for every mutant, so everyone's right back where they started before the vaccine was even developed. Plus, I thought they wasted a great opportunity to set up a 4th film that explores what it's like for a vaccinated mutant to re-enter "normal" life, a more drama-based approach like Unbreakable.

I'm not really sure what to make of the very ending of "Fight Club" (not the third act, which in general I love, but the last few minutes) but I'm not sure it negates the rest of the film.

I disagree that the ending of "Eternal Sunshine" is a problem; I think it leaves things ambiguous but with hope, which I think is appropriate; (SPOILERS) both central characters are broken, but with a bit of warning there is at least a chance that they can move forward and rebuild, which is really all the ending is saying. (/SPOILERS)

The ending of "Heathers" is another one that feels vaguely anticlimactic but doesn't bother me too much. I agree though on "Collateral" whose entire third act more or less nullified by accumulated goodwill from the first two.

I think the connection Billyeveryteen makes between the last shot of War of the Worlds and that shot from Stalker is pretty cool. I remember that when I first saw Minority Report I was startled how similiar its final shot is to the final shot in Tarkovsky's version of Solaris. Very interesting...

RE: FIGHT CLUB

I liked the ending to Fight Club. I don't think it negated anything.

***SPOILER ALERT***

Ed Norton realized that his Club that he started with Tyler pretty much turned into everything he hated (a completely Fascist franchise, just like the corporate world he used to live in), so he wanted to escape it. But since he is Tyler, he can't. So he shot himself- though the shot didn't immediately kill him, there's no doubt that he'll die, it's a helluva wound. He finally connects with Marla, because she's the only person he know that isn't tied to anything. She's a middle-woman- not trying to please anyone, just being herself. She also suffers from the same problems that Ed Norton does- Alienation.

***END SPOILER***

RE: ETERNAL SUNSHINE

I liked the ending. I thought it had a nice poetic quality to it. So what if it was upbeat. It wasn't like this was a dark movie to begin with.

RE: STRANGER THAN FICTION

The movie cops out at the end, because that's what the ending is about: copping out!

***SPOILER ALERT***

Karen couldn't deal with the idea of killing a real person, so she COPS OUT. Harold lives to be happy. And probably, so does Karen. Though we don't see it, Karen probably lives a life less obsessed with death. Hell, it may even be that she breaks her writer's block. Who knows?

RE: DO THE RIGHT THING

Ending undermines the film? I don't see how. Mookie wasn't racist. He threw the trash can because he was pissod off at everyone else. He just wanted his money, so why shouldn't he take it?

RE: THE DESCENT

I HATED the director's original ending.

***SPOILER ALERT***

To me, it would've given me greater pleasure to know that the last surviving girl drive off, knowing that she practically murdered one of her best friends. Now THAT'S poetic! It was more devastating for me to know that she'll be (almost literally) haunted for the rest of her life. But then we realize that none of it ever happened!!! It's a big, emotional moment, and it never happened!!! That's incredibly frustrating. It's something I'll never forgive the filmmakers for.

***END SPOILER***

So many people have talked about M. Night's, most of which I agree with, I'll keep my mouth shut on him for now.

Some others I didn't like:

FRAILTY:

***SPOILER ALERT***

I really, really liked the movie until the end. About 3-5 minutes before Matthew McConaughey reveals himself to be a killer, I realized that this twist was going to happen. My heart SUNK! The movie just switched from gripping drama about a guy killing in the name of (what he thinks is) the Lord, to twisty, dime-a-dozen thriller. This made me sad.

***END SPOILER***

RED EYE

Similar to the above, but it didn't ruin the movie that much.

***SPOILER ALERT***

Everything, I felt, built up nicely, but then really went into semi-action stuff at the end (the way they terrorists were planning to kill the Senator was particularly silly). It was still a very tense movie from then on, nicely directed by Wes Craven, but it just felt like a different movie.

***END SPOILER***

I know there are others, but I can't think of them now.

I find it fascinating that in this DVD era we can often see alternate endings and evaluate filmmaker's decisions from the comfort of our barcaloungers.

Although in every film history book you'll find anecdotes about the ending that Hitchcock wanted but was trounced by the studio, etc. I once got into a arguement with a professor over Double Indemnity, who claimed, with some backing from other critics, that the framing device seemed tacked on and detracted from the film. I disagreed, since the framing device is integrated into the plot so heavily that to imagine the film without it would be impossible.

So I'm a bit hesitant to wish for alternate endings, since I can't in good faith say that I'd value the film as much if I had seen it only with a different ending. My high regard for the film is informed by viewing it as is, bad ending and all.

Still, it is fun to speculate. One of the best DVDs is Suicide Kings, which features 2 alternate endings and commentary by the director explaining the choices that lead to the 2 alternates and finally to the one used in the released film. What is especially interesting to me is that all 3 work, on different levels and in different ways, but any one of the three could have been used and still fit with the tone of the film.

Probably the best alternate ending idea I've ever heard was Roger Ebert's own for 28 Days Later.

Its at the tail end of his review.

I think for myself, the ending of Rosemary's Baby completely destroyed the film. I had been completely engrossed in the film for two hours, loved it, intrigued by it. Is she just paranoid, or is she really carrying Satan's child? I was loving the film.

And then she has the baby. And in the last nine minutes of the film, the film completely collapses, to the point that I have no interest in seeing the film ever again. They really are Satanists? And they're just standing around like it's some minor dinner party instead of the birth of their god's child? Am I right in remembering that there was a random Japanese tourist taking photos? It just came across as silly, and not a good ending for a previously terribly effective thriller. I could almost buy Rosemary's maternal affection for that ... thing, since it was her baby, but everything around the scene just seemed so silly that it turned me off the entire film.

The other film I thought of has already been mentioned - I remember hearing that Minority Report was supposed to end with the information about the number of people that were murdered the following year, and absolutely think that was the logical, nay, necessary, ending to the film, just to add that little question of whether the events in the film were actually positive or not.

Off-hand, I can think of one movie with an ending so horribly manipulated that it really did destroy everything that came before, and that's Roger Donaldson's "No Way Out" (1987), with Kevin Costner and Gene Hackman. This was a case where I remember feeling that the final "twist" actually did make mincemeat out of the whole picture. When the final piece of information drops into place, nothing that had happened previously made any sense.

I agree with you 100%, Jim. In fact, I was just having a conversation with someone the other day about mostly decent movies whose endings all but ruin them and I mentioned the film my mind immediately goes to when this topic comes up: No Way Out!

What about movies with bad endings that you were willing to overlook because the rest of the movie was so good?

F.W. Murnau's "The Last Laugh." It's not too bad, really--you get the full experience as you were meant to, then they give you the tacked-on ending. Everything after the intertitle does go on for a little too long, though.

I love the ending to Rosemary's Baby, and it's obviously intended to be a little (actually very) silly; that's what makes it so disturbing. A bunch of pleasant senior citizens sitting around sipping tea and occasionally exclaiming "ALL HAIL SATAN!" Brilliant, I think.

HOOK has the worst ending of any Spielberg movie. I remember watching it with a growing sense of anger and dissatisfaction: Peter Pan gets the drop on Hook about six times in a row, spares his life EVERY TIME, and Hook then comes back to try to kill him before being taken out by the universe. Obviously, the intelligent and dramatically appropriate action is for Peter to kill Hook, but that wouldn't be nice or fit the filmmakers' sensibilities. You can practically see the flop-sweat of a director and screenwriter(s) desperately seeking to absolve the hero of any responsibility.

War of the Worlds *** SPOILER ***

How many people here who are panning War of the Worlds don't realize that the original book, and the infamous 1938 radio broadcast, also ended with the deus ex machina bacteria killing the Martians?

Yes, Cruise being reunited with his family intact was cheesy, but it was a minor transgression that in no way negated the absolute, brilliant creepiness this film conveyed.

I think, as when it was released, people are so busy bagging on Cruise and his part in the movie that they missed how good the rest of it was.

What a fun thread.

Re: Godfather III

"The Death of Michael Corleone" was actually what Coppola wanted to title the movie; the studio wouldn't let him. (Ironically, the studio didn't like the title "The Godfather Part II," but when that was made Coppola had the juice to get his way.) The original ending, according to the DVD commentary track, had Michael dying on the steps of the opera house (Kate asks him if he's dying, he lies to her one last time and says "no," then dies). Coppola felt it would drive the tragedy home more (umm, spoiler, but really, who still hasn't seen G3?) to have the daughter die and then have Michael live to be old and alone. Of course, Michael was alone and had lost his family at the end of Part II, so this just underscores how unnecessary Part III was.

Re: Fight Club

I'm a big fan of this movie, and I certainly wouldn't say the ending ruins it, but I do have mixed feelings about the ending -- especially after reading the book, which ends a bit differently. (Spoilers) In the movie, of course, the Narrator shoots Tyler through the back of the head while only shooting himself through the cheek (I disagree with Mason; there's no suggestion that the wound is going to be fatal). This doesn't make a ton of sense. The book has the Narrator killing both himself and Tyler, but then there's this bizarre afterlife sequence that really wouldn't have worked on film. Given that they had to change the ending somehow, I'm not sure what they did was much worse than any other alternative; it would be a bit tough to have Marla find him dead without striking kind of an odd note.

Re: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

I think the ending was perfect; it captured the risks we accept when we let ourselves fall in love, and our conviction that those risks are worth the trouble. ("Tis better to have loved and lost" and all that.) (spoilers) The odds are the relationship will fail, but they're willing to give it a go anyway. Making the relationship pre-destined to fail reflects human nature as a depressive sees it, not as it actually is.

Most of my least favorite endings have already been mentioned: AI (I found it quite hard to feel anything during a scene where a robot is talking to a recreation of a dead person), High Tension, etc. One mention I'll defend, however, is the Prestige (It seems kinda redundant to say spoilers ahead in a discussion about film endings, but here we go, spoilers ahead). I thought the reason it was so brilliant was because the trick was so simple, and the whole time the master illusionist, Michael Caine, keeps saying, "He's got a double!" to deaf ears. It was one of those movies where I figured out the ending but that didn't deter from it's power at all. As one review I read said, it's like watching a magic trick where you know how it's done, but you're still in awe.

- One of the worst endings I can remember in recent years is the ending to "The Cooler"...a complete deus ex machina, followed by William H. Macy desperately explaining how what we've just seen fits into the film's overall theme of luck. Terrible.

- The ending to "Running Scared" was awful, but so was the rest of the film, so that's a wash.

- Similarly, I hated the third act "twist" in "Fight Club", but I also hated the first two acts.

- I haven't minded any of Shyamalan's twist endings so far, except perhaps the hokey "Swing Away" twist in "Signs". But I actually feel that "The Village" is his best film, and (perhaps because I knew the ending coming in), I think it ends a level of poignancy to the whole film and makes it a parable about isolationism.

- I disagree with Jim about the ending of "Children of Men", which I found beautifully poetic. I did consider it uplifting, and it had every right to be...the entire film is about salvaging a kernel of hope even though the world is on the brink of extinction. It's also a poetic ending, and strongly harkens back to the ending of Ingmar Bergman's masterpiece "Shame", which also ended with characters in a rowboat. But while Bergman's ending suggested the bleakness of death, the people on Cuaron's boat encompass all of life's stages: birth (the baby), life (Kee) and death (Theo). It's a beautiful ending for a masterful film.

- In defense of Spielberg: yes, he does have ending problems, we all seem to agree. But I didn't think that the ending of "War of the Worlds" was anywhere near as egregious as everyone else. As a previous poster mentioned, I think Spielberg carries a lot of baggage and thus people often can't see what his films are trying to say. There are two main complaints people have about the ending of "War of the Worlds". The first (the bacteria deus ex machina) is straight out of Wells' book, and I love it, because it demonstrates the fallacy of so many other science fiction stories, in which only humans can hold the answer to how to defeat an impossible foe. The more common complaint is the family reunion. Again, this is straight out of Wells (in the book, the narrator is reunited with his wife, not his son, whom he had "counted among the dead"). But literal fidelity is not justification. I think the ending works because Spielberg makes the audience question just how much the survival of central characters really is "happy" in the context of a billion deaths and a world nearly destroyed. The look on Cruise's face as he hugs his son is not one of complete jubiliation, it is the hardened look of a man who is relieved to see his son, but won't be able to shake off the horrors he has seen any time soon. Also, the family isn't really "re-united"...like Ethan Edwards, Cruise's character is going to have to walk off alone, and rebuild his life by himself.

Interestingly, I think that the worst ending in Spielberg's film is in one of his most acclaimed films, "Saving Private Ryan". The sentimental bookend in modern times is a hideous slap in the face of the realism that constitutes the bulk of the film.

"Minority Report" is one of my favourite Spielberg films, but I agree that the overly explanatory final minutes aren't as brilliant as what has preceded it. I do think that the final shot of the pre-cogs is not as simplistically "happy" as everyone says, though. In a film of technology, Spielberg's final image is one of peace and tranquility, in an old-fashioned log cabin on an isolated island.

- The final shot in "Pleasantville" (another one of my favourites) is one that has always perplexed me as well, but I don't necessarily mind that. I like one of the previous poster's interpretations that it's meant to suggest that the characters now have to struggle with free will.

- I agree that the ending of "Psycho", with the psychiatrist, is terrible...and to question another sacred cow, what about the ending of "Vertigo"? That is one of my favourite films, but the ending is quite rushed, even if it is tragic and ironic. Come to think of it, the ending to "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (the 1956 version) and "Lifeboat" are also somewhat abrupt and unsatisfactory. These are still great films, and Hitchcock is still a great filmmaker (just as Spielberg is), which is why I often feel that audience members place far too much value on endings, rather than focusing on what has preceded it.

Let's face it "Minority Report "fell apart half way through, not just at the end. From the moment Cruise's character kicked his drug habit by falling asleep, I thought to myself, there goes any real sensibility in dealing with the character's reality that has been created, and from there on in it was silly, with one or two okay sequences. But to say that the final shot reminds a person of Tarkovsky's "Solaris" is just as silly.

Uh **spoiler** for a film everyone should have seen by now...

When we pull back and see that the home the scientist returns to is not actually home but the planet, you're left a little disturbed. It's great.

There is no moment like that at the end of "Minority Report", just constant end after end after end... just like A.I. It wasn't the way in which it ended, it was the complete lack of control over the story's rhythms. The whole film was like that. Ambitious, just not strung together in an effective way, and I read somewhere that's what Spielberg was going for. But he's had that problem for awhile. Did we need to see all of the people at Schindler's grave during the credits? Really? Or the bookends in "SPR", "War of the Worlds" was whacked from the beginning. Honestly, his best work in a long time was "Munich"...thanks to Kushner. Otherwise [his films] have been intriguing, with great moments, but not completely cohesive in awhile.

But off old topics...

Ingmar Bergman's "The Serpent's Egg"...his only Hollywood production I believe. Not a great film anyway, and a really poor performance by Carradine, but what twists the knife which has already been placed in the heart is the obligatory violence and simplistic statements the film makes in the final moments...very anti-Bergan...and still unforgivable.

Haneke's "Hour of the Wolf". Another less than mediocre film from an intriguing filmmaker, but when he tries to force you to feel something for anyone's plight in the final moments of the film...well, it would have been just as effective to see the filmmaker step out of the screen, kneel before you and beg you to feel something, which I hadn't the whole film...pathetic.

"Blood Diamond", which I wasn't expecting to be worth much of anything, I actually really liked, until the ending that would not end. I kept letting my head roll back wanting **spoiler**

the character to just finally die already. How long can someone stare off into the sunset before an audience member's patience is worn out, kind of like how many licks to get to the center of a tootsie roll tootsie pop, only Blood Diamond answered our question for us. And having to watch Connelly underperform for another moment would have killed me. But it didn't ruin the rest of the film, which I've seen again since then.

"The Village" - I still managed to enjoy most of the film. The end didn't ruin the rest of it for me...just the end. And I really like "Unbreakable" and the end. The film was about Willis' character coming to terms with his new power and his family. The Jackson character's arc was a subplot. Yeah, let's see the invincible guy beat down the brittle guy. That would have been a lot of fun to watch...riiiight...

"The Illusionist" What a strong showing. What a great little film. Until the last two minutes.

Then there's the movies when you see the ending the very moment you start watching... "21 Grams", "The Prestige", "Brown Bunny" (don't even get me started on "Brown Bunny"!!!)

Every year I see two films that are utterly destroyed by their poorly written endings. You want to slap some studio heads.

I guess I must be the only person in the world who actually likes:

-the psychiatrist explanation in Psycho: I just like the manner in which the psychiatrist does it, almost as if he were taking some sort of perverse pleasure out of what he says. It's a great performance and I love it. Is it unnecessary? Sure, but there are a lot of things in a lot of movies that are "unnecessary" or "gratuitous" that we nevertheless would hate to have to do without. For me, this is one of them.

-the book-ending scenes in Saving Private Ryan: Apparently Spielberg actually saw an old man collapse in tears at a grave in Arlington Cemetary as a younger man and it stayed with him for many years, ultimately inspiring him to include these sequences at the beginning and end of the film. Personally, I think it places the rest of what occurs in the rest of the movie in a sort of context. It sort of "attaches" the events of so long ago to us modern young people in a very real way, providing a door with which to "enter into" the past (or perhaps a window through which to view these historical happenings) rather than just plopping us right down in the middle of it without any sort of introduction. I know some people who said they went home after seeing the film and embraced their grandfathers. I'm pretty confident that these scenes had something to do with that.

-the rocks on the grave in Schindler's List: First of all, Spielberg's choice to end the film in a full-color sequence completes something that he sets up in the film's opening shots and carries throughout the film. His use of color in this predominately monochromatic film is symbolic of a certain "way of life" for the Jewish people, a way that vanishes (like a flame being snuffed out) during the period of the Holocaust. It is only when Schindler allows the rabbi to celebrate the Sabbath near the film's conclusion that a small hope of that way of life returning manifests itself again (in the color of the candle flames) only to be fully restored once we have entered the present day in the film's finale. Secondly, by having the real people and the actors potraying them in the film, pay tribute to Schindler, Spielberg drives home the fact that what we have just experienced was based on historical fact and truth. He reminds us that what we just saw occurring on the screen for three hours and 10 minutes was far more than "just another movie." It really happened. People say that scene is unnecessary. I think it's VERY necessary. No less necessary as the rest of the movie. In an age of rampant Holocaust denial, this final gesture is admirable and I can't imagine the film without it. Roger Ebert finds it to be one of the most moving segments of the film. I agree with him.

As for a lot of the other endings that people have mentioned here, some bother me more than others but I think that very few of them "ruin" the entire films, they just disappoint to some degree or another based on what that came before it. In some cases the endings actually "make" the movies. The Usual Suspects, The Sixth Sense, The Prestige: these stories are all about their endings. Everything that happens throughout the rest of these movies are all essentially building up to the endings. Like having Hamlet survive, any other endings for these stories wouldn't work. They had to end the way that they did. Period.

My last word on endings (HA!) is that it's not about whether a film ends happily or unhappily, whether it goes on long or stops abruptly, whether it's a surprise twist or whether it's predictable, whether it ties up all loose ends or leaves a lot open... it's about each film earning whatever ending it does have, and some stories earn their endings while others do not.

I think sometimes the problem is not the actual ending (in terms of how the story is concluded) but how the coda is depicted. I just watched "The Prestige" and, having slept on it, really liked the film. That said I was litterally howling at the screen during the conclusion. It wasn't because of the reveal, which I had pegged pretty early on (c'mon, an important character who's face in never clearly filmed and always seems to be walking out of the frame?). What bothered me was the last few minutes "post game wrap up" where the whole the thing is spelled out in all-caps. Nothing beats having a movie treat the audience like a moron. I expected better from the diretor of Memento.

As for an ending that killed an otherwise good picture, that's a tough one. As a genre movie fan I can't stand the Sixth Sense / High Tension "everything you know is wrong" type of thing anymore. Its trite, its not clever and needs to be put down like Old Yeller.

For my money the worst example of this type of nonsense had to be Identity. What seemed to be Ten Little Indians via the Twilight Zone is finally shown to a hypnotherapy rollplaying session. Ballsy? I guess. Smart? Not so much.

Twist endings are the easiest to pick on in this topic. By their nature they tend to be make or break moments. If it works for you, then great. If it falls flat then you're sunk. That's the gamble the film makers take.

Jim, you should get an inversion of this thread going. Movies where the ending saved the whole enterprise from collapse.

--Allan

I've always wished that When Harry Met Sally had ended about two minutes sooner, while I'll throw my hat in with those who can't abide the ending of Psycho, which is minor Hitchcock for me.

The conclusion of Minority Report strikes me as a joke Spielberg played on his detractors — an act of perfectly measured deviltry.

Let's look back at the movie to see when that shift in tone occurs, when things start looking up for our hero.

GIDEON
You're a part of my flock now, John. Welcome.

The camera pulls back to reveal Gideon (Tim Blake Nelson), who stands guard over the convicted criminals sentenced to "halo sleep" — the forced coma.

GIDEON
It's actually kind of a rush. They say that you have visions. That your life flashes before your eyes. That all your dreams come true.

Anderton, trussed up and with a fluorescent ring around his head, is being tilted up into a sci-fi sarcophagus. Utterly passive, he is fitted into the cylinder and it descends into the ground. We see his name and case number light up on a tombstone that marks his resting place. Then: utter blackness except for the glow of his infernal headband, which glows brighter and brighter, barely illuminating his sleeping eyes. Then, pow, cut to Burgess, duked out in finery in his burnished wood study, saying "This is all my fault" to Lara, moments before his inadvertent confession.

Those of you who were not going to the movies in 2002 might be saying to yourself, "They actually fell for that?" And I swear to you they did. Nobody but nobody said word one about this being the oldest trick in the book.

What's the dream of a betrayed lawman, if not that an unjust world would become just? What's the dream of a bereaved ex-husband, if not that his wife would always fight for him? There's no "concrete" evidence that the ending of the movie is Anderton's dream, which is exactly why it's so sly. Rather than end this Brazil-ian sci-fi dystopia with the equivalent of that film's shot of its lobotomized hero, which puts the lie to the immediately previous scene of his imagined liberation, Spielberg tries to pass off the exact same ending but without the rimshot, just to see if the audience is paying attention.

http://www.flakmag.com/film/spielberg/

In defense of Saving Private Ryan: I feel like the only person in the world who likes the ending of that film, but because I interpret it completely differently than how most do. Most consider it Speilberg sap "Of course dear you were worth it. And isn't America great?" But I found the wife's reassurances intentionally unsatisfying--how could she, a noncombatant, ever understand? The survivor's cost is alienation--"And I alone escaped to tell thee." In this context the framing American flag is less patriotic then a simple statement of fact.

In defense of the ending of Unbreakable: it's a wink and a nod to comics fans. Any comics fan knows that for a supercriminal to be locked in an asylum for the criminally insane is a beginning, not an ending. I found it delightful.

While the "Hollywood ending" is an annoyance for me, as well, some people seem to be completely against a happy ending, and want everything to be a dark, serious ending that says, "the world is a terrible place". There are cases when the nice ending is out of whack with the whole theme of the movie. But take Minority Report. I don't think the point was, the world is terrible and you lose. Cruise is set up as our flawed hero, and we want to see the hero succeed. If Spielberg ended the film with Cruise getting locked away, it would've upset me after sitting through the whole flick. I didn't see any merit in such a down ending.

As for the Sixth Sense, that ending works because it isn't cheating the audience in any way. Looking back at the film a second time, all the clues are there, and it makes perfect sense in retrospect. ** SPOILER ** The reason for Willis' character is there, the reason the boy is so nervous when he first appears. The fact that one of the spirits brings the solution to the problem of the spirits' appearing to him in the first place. All very ingenious.

This may be another person speaking sacrilige here, but I hated the ending to "The French Connection". Maybe I missed the point of the movie or didn't get what the director was trying to show me, but that non-ending really aggravates me.

Others have done a perfectly good job explaining the brilliance of the ending of A.I. so I'll elaborate a little on explaining why the ending of Saving Private Ryan is perfect. I believe this is another case where Spielberg was too subtle for his audience.
The entire point of Saving Private Ryan, beginning to end, is to pose a question about the value of human life - is it worth it for a few (the soldiers) to give their lives for the many (civilians) but the movie puts a new spin on that idea - the many are seeking to give their lives for one (Ryan).

As the movie ends, Ryan is left contemplating the notion that so many men have given their lives so that he, specifically, can live in freedom. Tom Hanks' last statement to him before he dies is "Earn this", an immense burden for Ryan to bear - and the implication is for the rest of us as well.

As we travel to the past, this burden is weighing on us, and on Ryan, and he asks his wife, "Am I a good man?" Of course she's going to tell him yes, but the question lingers - it's a question for all of us that cannot be answered easily, especially when surrounded by rows upon rows of grave markers of men who gave the ultimate sacrifice.

The film's final image, that of an American flag, is not _just_ an American flag but one penetrated by sunlight so that it is desaturated, flimsy, transparent - the perfect symbol to express the a society's uncertainty and fragility in the face of total war.

Here's something a little disappointing: Almost every single film discussed in this thread (after the original post) was released in my filmgoing lifetime (I'm 28). So this is mainly a conversation about theatregoing experiences - which are necessarily difficult to disentangle from the worst of our preconceptions.

It'd be nice to see a little longer view of surprise-ending history here; I'm not saying we need to bring up Shakespeare's Cymbeline or anything (though talk about a ridiculous final act...), but so many of these criticisms feel like snippy knee-jerk responses, or the immoderate complaints of people, um, my age.

Then again, it was that kind of a question, I suppose.

Maybe the Children of Men were laughing at the end because they were torturing flies offscreen. As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods...

Quick word about Minority Report:

I've never bought the theory that everything seen after Cruise gets "halo-ed" is part of his hallucinatory experience while in captivity. As unsatisfying as the "real" ending may be, I prefer to take it literally and, knowing Spielberg's ultimately optimistic worldview, I can't imagine him wanting the ending to be taken any other way than how it is depicted. Certainly not the bleak, almost nihilistic, reading that "it's-all-a-dream-from-this-point-on" seems to indicate.

Nevertheless, it is an interesting, if not terribly appealing, interpretation and shows that here is more going on in that film than many people realize or care to admit.

I really liked the excerpt from the link Sean posted above http://www.flakmag.com/film/spielberg/minority.html (about Minority Report). I've also liked the defenses of the ending of AI.

But I'd just like to mention one of the implications of the dark ending interpretation of Minority Report. People had posted earlier lamenting that Spielberg decided not to include a caption about the 100 murders in Washington D.C. after Pre-crime was abandoned. In light of this new dark interpretation with Anderton simply being locked away. Spielberg made the right decision. If he had included the caption after the potential fantasy "happy ending" it would have in a sense "locked in" the happy ending as reality and made the dark alternative interpretation much less viable. Seen in this light, I think I would have to say Spielberg made the right choice (even though initially I liked the caption ending). It's a small price to pay for a much improved ending.

Re: Happy endings

In brief: It's not that happy endings are inherently bad, but this one was so poorly executed (with a careless slip of the tongue etc...) that it was definitely the weakest point of this otherwise great film. The darker ending isn't better simply by virtue of it being darker, it's better because it explains the radical shift in tone and the apparent sloppiness we were witnessing. It all makes sense if it's part of his "dreams coming true." They could have chosen to give the movie a genuine happy ending, but in order to do so without reducing the overall quality of the film it would've had to have been subtler and more nuanced to keep pace with the rest of the film.

Wow, that comment about Minority Report kind of blew my mind. While it's questionable whether Spielberg meant it to be Anderton's dream, it could be interpreted that way. I never really gave the guard's words all that much thought. Has anyone ever asked Spielberg about that?

As for the happy ending being a bit much, I think the only part I even recall scoffing at was that his wife was pregnant in that last scene. That was a bit too much. Just having them reconcile would be easier to swallow.

Off the top of my head i'd go for another David Fincher movie, The Game. I really enjoyed the movie but found the "solution" to what was going on disappointing. Not only would i have preferred it that SPOILER there really were sinister forces behind the game who were intent on destroying Douglas' life in order to seize his wealth, it's also far more believable. When it's revealed that his brother was behind it, and that none of what had happened was "real", i just didn't buy it. Especially the very last part - not just Douglas attempting suicide, but the engineers of the game anticipating his suicide. I still love the movie, but i just think that the solution to the mystery isn't on a par with the mystery itself.

I think any ending that involves a pregnant woman as a symbol of hope is awful.

Besides Minority Report, there is also Wonder Boys, which I thought was pretty good until the ending.

One movie that I thought of that was definitely ruined for me by its ending was Three Kings - a pleasantly radical modern war movie that turns to mush in its final fifteen minutes with a pandering, pleasing, everything's-okay-after-all conclusion that obviates all guilt.

Off the top of my head i'd go for another David Fincher movie, The Game. I really enjoyed the movie but found the "solution" to what was going on disappointing. Not only would i have preferred it that SPOILER there really were sinister forces behind the game who were intent on destroying Douglas' life in order to seize his wealth, it's also far more believable. When it's revealed that his brother was behind it, and that none of what had happened was "real", i just didn't buy it. Especially the very last part - not just Douglas attempting suicide, but the engineers of the game anticipating his suicide. I still love the movie, but i just think that the solution to the mystery isn't on a par with the mystery itself.

Many people I have talked to who disliked the ending of "Children of Men" thought that it ended too abruptly.

(Spoilers, of course) Sure, we see the boat -- "Tomorrow" -- emerge from the fog and then we hear the sound of children laughing and playing, but they wanted the film to actually follow Kee onto the boat, and maybe even have the good doctors of "The Human Project" revive Clive Owen's character, who may not have bled out yet from his stomach wound but just fainted from the blood loss. What these people seem to be wanting is to be spoon-fed a happy ending, not dissimilar to the super-happy ending of "Wayne's World." Between the shot of the ship and the children's laughter on the soundtrack, I thought the movie may have already pushed to far in that direction, and would have preferred that it leave Kee in the boat with the hope, but not the certainty of rescue. Of course this ending would have been seen as cruel, but might have felt more true to the tragic hopefulness of the rest of the movie.

Thinking back through the movie, though, there is a very good reason why the director chose to end it when he did. The movie is really the story of Clive Owen's character. He's in almost every single scene. The movie even cuts at one point when he falls asleep, only to resume again when he awakens at the beginning of the truly astonishing car chase sequence. The only hold out I can think of where Clive Owen is not the focus is when the camera follows Michael Caine's character back into the house to show him preparing the suicide cocktail for his wife and dog. This little aside was accomplished through an almost literal hand-off as Michael Caine placed his hand on the car window to say goodbye to Kee. Otherwise, Clive Owen remains at the center of almost every scene, and it is only fitting that the film ends when he dies.

(End Spoilers... Whew!)

As for Spielberg, we may hate his endings, but who among us wouldn't want to watch a Spielberg movie that never ended.

As for Shyamalan... The greatest twist ending he could give his audience now would be no twist ending at all.

Just wanted to throw this in re: The Game. The ending was nearly identical to the underrated Peter O'Toole flick, The Stunt Man. Steve Railsback isn't my cup of tea as anything but Charles Manson but I loved this film in 1981. The twists and effects are old hat now but O'Toole is at the top of his "movie star" thing even playing a director and I'm surprised it isn't mentioned more when discussing his work.

Ethan,

Yes, actually, when Spielberg visited my graduate film school, someone asked him whether the ending of Minority Report was all a dream. He stated categorically, "No, it's not." That's not definitive, of course - he could have been kidding though he certainly seemed serious.

I think the "it's all a dream" interpretation is the most obvious one, and quite frankly if it _isn't_ a dream then it's a rotten ending. But I have a feeling it's not really supposed to be, no matter how much it seems like it is. Then again I am only basing that judgment on the similarly crappy-sappy endings in Spielberg's career.

Wow, reading these comments may have made me stupider.

The numerous comments about LOTR: Um, did any of you realize that the films are based on a trilogy of books? Those endings are all consistent with the books. The "multiple endings" in ROTK are the only way to end the trilogy (yeah, it was a series of films...a complete trilogy). Have attention spans worn so thin that closure is no longer necessary?

The Limey: (SPOILER) The ending to that film fits perfectly with the narrative. Wilson is complicit in his daughter's death in a sense...vengeance is meaningless when he finally discovers this.

AI: As someone else mentioned, this ending was based on Kubrick's concept. Speilberg overdid the sentiment, but he was true to the original concept.

Fight Club: How else could the film have ended? And yes, once again...based on a book. Maybe you should all stop commenting and pick up a novel every once in while.

That is such a good point, Joel. But I think you're going a little easy on Tolkien. One thing that's always disappointed me about The Lord of the Rings is Tolkien's apparent inability to stay consistent with his sources in Finnish folk sagas by even ATTEMPTING to maintain archaic trochaic tetrameter. I mean, pick up an epic poem every once in a while! Am I right?!

Joel,
I like a lot of what you said but I must point out a couple of things. First: Hollywood has a pretty long history of chewing up and spitting out novels in whatever way it deems commercial or "artful" (seen The Shining or Sleepy Hollow?) and second: many people complain just as much about the endings of books. Personally, I'm from the school that says if you don't like the novel (or its ending), write your own damn story, but I couldn't ignore the history of Hollywoodization of novels in light of your comments.

Oh Hell, I completely forgot about The Game. Love that one. Any film that that's central theme seems to be that you can heal personal trauma and feel better about yourself if you just spend several million dollars to play the worlds most elaborate version of Laser Tag. Keep on rockin' man!

I will say here what I said to someone just after seeing Return of the King and having them complain about the multiple endings. I prefer LOTR's multiple resolutions to The Matrix: Revolutions' complete lack of a single resolution.

The ending to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was perfect as it can get. The original scripted ending would have turnded the movie to nothing more than a soulless joke, much like the endings to Being John Malkovich and Adaptaion. Thank god for Gondry.

I really hated the ending of the old John Travolta thriller, "Blow Out". Up until the ending, I thought it had the making of a great film, but the director instead manipulated the feelings of the audience for his characters in order to set up a sick joke at the end (involving the rape and murder of the leading lady). Ruined the whole film. DePalma was always a Hitchcock copycat. He should have paid attention when Hitchcock said (paraphrasing here): "If you set off a bomb in a crowd, you get a few seconds of surprise. But if you plant a time bomb under a table and let the clock run down, you get an hour or more of suspense. Only one rule: you can never let the bomb explode. If you do, the audience will hate you." DePalma failed to learn the lesson. On reason he remains, at best, a pale copy of Hitch.

CHILDREN OF MEN, a great concept self destructs due to some of the weakest writing in cinematic history. Opportunities to really let us know these people, and like them because we relate to them, were lost in the pointless bloodbath of the third act and the absurd reactions of the characters on both sides to what was happening in the world around them. The climax reflected the film, missing the point but using a lot of blood bags to cover up the weak writing. POINT ONE-That Luke believed that handheld weaponry and few thousand rag-tag rebels could overthrow a technologically equipped military dictatorship is absurd. To show him as conflicted about anything but the fact that his mission was doomed to pointless, suicidal failure mocks the intelligence of the audience. POINT TWO-That the army, to a man, would "stand down" long enough for a foreign woman (the number one target of the government) CARRYING THE RAREST THING ON EARTH and a disgraced bureaucrat (remember, according to cartoon man Sid, he was on the news as a cop killer) while they stroll out of the terrorist stronghold and down to the dock makes me laugh. POINT THREE-that any of the caricature forces in this film would allow Theo (obviously named 'lover of God') and Kee ('key to the future')out of their sight long enough to get as far as they did...that's a joke that runs through the whole film. POINT FOUR-Although fast paced, the suspension of disbelief throughout the movie just didn't work. The escape from the farm scene in particular with the distributor/spark plug wiring so conveniently located just under the hood at the right front of the engine block and the fact that a car without a clutch could be push-started going uphill in the mud, even though it wouldn't start after a half-mile downhill coast...well, I'm belaboring the point. Great concept, poorly executed. Nice cinemaphotography. The only character I had any sympathy for was Michael Caine's poor wife...a photojournalist who apparently became a vegetable after a savage beating while trying to tell the truth.