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Fallen

Fallen

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Highly recommended.
Review: Fallen is a great psycho-thriller, with good acting and a very strong narrative. No gore, little violence, incredible intensity.

If you loved the intrigue and surprise of The Sixth Sense, you'll enjoy this movie.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Fallen is one of the best horror/thrillers of the decade
Review: Fallen is underrated, as I felt it wasn't nowhere near as bad as some critics said it to be. It's a very interesting mix of The Exorcist and The Silence of the Lambs and Seven. The result is one of the best thrillers of the decade. It's not quite up there with Lambs or Seven but it's as good as Arlington Road and is significantly superior to The Bone Collector and Kiss the Girls.

The plot is about Detective John Hobbes (Denzel Washington), who has just captured serial killer Edgar Reese (Elias Koteas). Before Reese is executed, he speaks to Hobbes in a strange language and tells him a riddle, asking him why there's a space between Lyons and Spakowsky. Hobbes doesn't think much of this and watches silently as Reese is executed in the gas chamber.

The next day, another murder occurs, and Hobbes and his partner Jonesy (John Goodman) check it out. To his shock, Hobbes finds the same riddle Reese told him scrawled on the wall of the victim's apartment. Unraveling the clue and with the help of an intelligent woman named Gretta Milano (Embeth Davidtz), he discovers that a demon called Azazel had inhibited the body of Reese and can switch from one human host another with a simple touch.

The premise itself is chilling, yet I was a bit hesitant to watch this film. The critics' reviews were mixed but all of them seemed to agree that the film was a bit slow moving. The truth is, Fallen is a bit slow for the first forty or so minutes, but the last eighty minutes are full of intriguing ideas that are well explored along with plenty of extremely suspenseful scenes, especially the ending, which, by the way, has a great twist.

Regarding the suspenseful moments of the film, they can truly be described as edge of your seat. One of the most harrowing sequences in this film is an original chase scene that involves the domino effect, where the demon chases after Davidtz by passing from one human host to another. There's also the chilling scenes where Washington has to try and keep up with who Azazel has just possessed.

Fallen's greatest aspect, despite all those truly thrilling and very suspenseful scenes, is its ending. It first involves a very clever plan being unfolded by one of the characters and ends with a great and unpredictable plot twist. This is truly one of the most unpredictable endings I have seen. It might not have as much of the shock power as the edgy (and twisty) climaxes of Seven and Arlington Road (or for that matter, The Sixth Sense), but it's just as surprising if not more.

The performances in this film are solid. Denzel Washington is fine as the detective who is much more clever than Azazel thinks. John Goodman is his usual solid self as Hobbes' partner, and he excels in this role, proving he has a lot of range ever since his show Roseanne was cancelled. Embeth Davidtz's performance is okay though her character is slightly underwritten. The real scene stealer, though, is Elias Koteas. Though he's in the film for five minutes his Edgar Reese character is scary and actually a bit fun to watch. Most of the characters are well-developed and this helps us care for Hobbes and his family.

The script by Nicholas Kazan is well-written and the twist in the end makes it better to appreciate and Gregory Hoblit's use of a dark, edgy atmosphere and mood is undeniably effective.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A very intriguing movie and an excellent twisted plot!
Review: What I like the most about this movie isn't necessarily the plot, which is to die for, but it is the idea and the unexploited side of this movie. This was the first film I was that was talking about transfer of the Devil in human beings. THat showed us a shadow part of the bible I never had heard of.

Denzel Washington is great and acts very serious and interested. Great acting.

A must see.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Fallen Down
Review: How can a movie made in that hip city of Philadelphia not have at least a little something going for it? Here's how: Copycat killings lead the baffled Detective Hobbes (Denzel) to figure that something of the supernatural variety is hexing and vexing him. Despite hooking up with a theology prof (Embeth Davidtz), Hobbes has to figure it all out himself. Azazel-that's the demon-travels from one body to another by touch. How daffy! You're sure to get a chuckle out of the central transference scene as pasty-faced extras do their worst Boris Karloff acts.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Affable story...too bad the Nineties excesses kill it
Review: The sad thing about 'Fallen' is that the story had some potential. If it had been nurtured, steered towards hard-core horror and treated with respect by its handlers, 'Fallen' could have been a good, lower-profile hit. But it was butchered, seemingly just for the sake of introducing a new generation of filmgoers to the occult thriller vein. Washington is passable in the lead role but Goodman is abysmally mismatched in this picture. There's way too much of Hollywood's 'big boom' explosion feel here which likewise raises eyelids with lighting rather than fear. The pace is questionable - the film takes far far too long to even try and start to move. What's worst of all is that there's a total tongue-in-cheekness taken by the director to the occult subjet matter. With the demons of old, you were warned not to mess around with the occult through sheer fear. Here, there's too much violence and too little satanic overtone. While this movie was supposed to have warned you about the consequences of living in a world of demonic possession, instead it serves as a warning for you not to pick it up for anything more than a rental. Make sure you have a coupon to go with that rental, just to make sure. I hate the 1990's and how bad things have become in all film genres, but particularly horror. This is one field which needs to be saved from itself.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Slick, original and brilliant Thriller.
Review: I have heard very mixed results about this film, you either love it or you hate it. I Love It. It has a Great Chilling script, Brilliant actors including (of course) Denzel Washington, John Goodman, Donald Sutherland and James Gandelfini. (Yes, Tony Soprano himself.. And playing a cop) Another thing I've heard mixed reveiws about is the ending which I think is great. See it for yourself

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Whodunnit of the supernatural; Intelligent & suspenseful
Review: This is a supernatural thriller starring Denzel Washington as John Hobbes, an honest cop who is trying to figure out the mystery that connects the suicide of a policeman 30 years ago to the convict he just saw die in the gas chamber. Are these homicides being committed by a serial killer, a copycat killer or something even more bizarre and out of this world? He enlists the help of the daughter of the dead policeman to help him understand the unexplainable circumstances surrounding him. As the clues begin to point toward Hobbes as a killer, he wonders if he's being set up. It's an extremely intriguing story, and you're never quite sure you've figured it out - even through the ending scene. Washington's character and his performance are similar to his character in "The Pelican Brief." Donald Sutherland and John Goodman are fine in their supporting roles as fellow police officers.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Engaging Suspense
Review: This is from the director of Seven, and it is really a director's film.The style of film-making is really about half of what the film has to offer. But, that is a lot. I think of this as the whodunnit film of the Occult .Denzel Washington is brilliant and the cast of supporting characters are fun and interesting. Fallen is a great film for the fan of suspense or Occult who can't stomach the usual fright fest. It is really as much a mystery as a thriller. If you are in the mood to be really entertained,but don't want to be up all night ,you'll enjoy what Fallen has to offer.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Denzel...what happened baby?
Review: I'm only giving this 3 stars because Denzel is fine....other than that don't bother.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: no expectations, and you really will like this film
Review: If you have no expectations and you allow yourself to blend into the atmosphere of the film you may find it really good and quite frightening.

Good movie.


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