 | |
List Price: $9.98 | | Label: Starz / Anchor Bay
Salesrank: 50524
Released: September 16, 2008 |
| Our Price: $1.88 |
| Used Price: $1.52 |
|
MPAA Rating: Unrated
Media: DVD |
|
Editorial Review:
Academy Award® winner Tim Robbins stars as David Owen, a Manhattan husband and father so unhinged by the noise outside his window that he declares a one-man war on car alarms. But when David goes over the edge and becomes a citywide noise-vigilante known as 'The Rectifier', he incurs the wrath of New York’s sleazy blowhard Mayor (a hilarious performance by Oscar® winner William Hurt) who vows to stop him. How much damage will one guy inflict for a little peace and quiet? Bridget Moynahan (I, ROBOT) and William Baldwin (Dirty Sexy Money) co-star in this wickedly funny black comedy from award-winning writer/director Henry Bean (The Believer) that The New Yorker hails as "a splendidly eccentric film alive with the creative madness of New York City!"
Description of Noise:
Of all the noxious aspects to modern life, the one that people seem to most passively put up with is noise pollution--random car alarms, horns, sirens, screeching machinery and the like. Perhaps because there's no single "bad guy" behind the creeping situation, there've been few movements against it. Which leaves the perfect opening for Noise, Henry Bean's allegory about a one-man vigilante for peace and quiet, played with torment and depth by the always-dependable Tim Robbins. Robbins plays David, a devoted husband and father who becomes so distressed--then obsessed--by the noise in his adopted home of Manhattan that he snaps (quietly, of course). The film channels Falling Down, but also has elements of Batman and other superhero dramas, as David takes on the persona of The Rectifier--breaking into cars whose alarms go off incessantly and dismantling the alarms. His obsession takes deeper and more dangerous turns, and he becomes both public enemy No. 1 (in the eyes of the city's unctuous mayor, played splendidly by William Hurt, who calls him "nothing but a two-bit vigilante") and a hero to the everyjoes as rattled by the needless racket as David is. Bean's storytelling is also creative, playing with time and chronology, as David's focus shifts and darkens. One wonders periodically why David doesn't take up the suggestion of his wife (Bridget Moynahan) to move to the leafy suburbs, or even back to the Midwest. But no matter: The Rectifier is on a mission. "I used to think there's nothing you could do about the noise," David muses at one point. "But once you get started, it's easy. It's stopping that's hard." The disc includes a fascinating commentary by writer-director Bean, who based the character of David on himself, years earlier when he broke into cars to turn off their alarms, even serving jail time for the offenses. --A.T. Hurley
Noise Reviews:
Honk your horn for "Noise" 
2009-12-20 - ***1/2
David Owen is as mad as hell and he's not going to take it anymore. What he`s mad about is car alarms. Car alarms that go off in the middle of the night, or when he's trying to put his colicky baby to sleep, or when he's making love to his wife, or when he's just this close to grasping a particularly dense passage in a treatise by Hegel. After years of putting up with this ubiquitous urban din and vainly pleading with the authorities to do something about it, David finally resorts to vigilantism, smashing out the windows and dismantling the alarms of the offending vehicles, even going so far as to leave a calling card in his wake identifying himself as The Rectifier. Soon the mysterious noise-fighter has achieved near folk-hero status among his fellow Manhattanites and become a true thorn-in-the-side to the city's unctuous mayor, played amusingly by William Hurt.
Sort of a dark comic, upscale version of "Taxi Driver," "Noise" is a rage-against-the-machine fantasy that chooses as its target the relentless cacophony of city life. David, who's a successful attorney in his day job, isn't quite as off the rails as Travis Bickle, but there are times when his obsessiveness begins to border on the psychotic. Is David suffering from mental illness or is he simply acting out against the impotency and inadequacy he feels in all areas of his life? Or does he just get off on hating and being angry all the time? Whatever the underlying psychological reason, once he establishes himself as The Rectifier, David develops a whole new outlook on life. And who among us can't identify at least to some extent with David`s frustration, for don't we all have something that forever gets under our skin and that we would do just about anything we could to get it to stop? David just happens to be the one person to actually act on that impulse.
Written and directed by Henry Bean, "Noise" is a satire of metropolitan neuroticism performed in a minor key. Tim Robbins carries the film with his understated portrait of a man wound up so tight that he threatens at any moment to completely unravel. He receives solid support from Bridget Moynihan as the wife who can't understand why the man she married has suddenly turned into a raving lunatic, and Margarita Levieva as an attractive newspaper reporter who uncovers The Rectifier's true identity and wants to explore what really makes this explosive man-of-the-people figure "tick."
The humor isn't always as uproarious as it could be, but everyone, not just city-dwellers, should find something to appreciate in David Owens' amusingly extended rant.
Ever have something that get on your nerves? 
2009-08-01 - I can imagine being in his shoes but I don't think I would go so far. After all the movie is fiction. I don't remember it being advertised when the movie came out. But I found it on a On Demand service one day and enjoyed it so much I bought the DVD.
Gary Hoyt
2009-06-24 - I'd like to see more movies like this.
There are now over 7 billion people on earth, 4 billion in 1972. Meaning allot more natural noise.
The "IDIOTS" that make the unnecessary noise pollution with modified exhaust systems aren't "cool" they are the scourge of society.
wont be shown in school civics class...
2009-06-03 - This movie is to cool to write a synopsis for, if you can't stand the system and believe that change can only come from outside of it, watch this. Alright then, the acting, directing, and writing were all of professional quality. Look out for the "ugly vagina" scene which makes this a no-no for the kiddies.
Delightful and original 
2009-04-23 - Noise is an fantastic deviation from the norm that sadly did not make enough of a splash when it was released, which was only 2 years ago I was amazed to find out. Robbins plays alawyer that is constantly annoyed with the noise of living in New York city. Added on top of the stresses of his home life and work, Robbins begins to take the fight to the source, becoming a high profile vandal known as the Rectefier. His attacks on his foe draw the ire of the mayor of New York City, and the battle between them for Robbins sanity follows a variety of interesting turns.
Robbins acting in this is top notch, supported by several smaller names, most of whom held their weight, but was nearly poisoned by a few parts that felt overblown and outrageous.
There are quite a few scenes that feel drastically out of place, and Robbins tailspin marriage and separated affair feels a bit overdone, almost to the point of softcore pornography. But aside from this weird turn, the movie was hysterical, with several scenes worth watching repeatedly, and an ending message that's uplifting and empowering, that the little guy can still slay the giant.
