Directed by: Zal Batmanglij
Rating: 0 stars
The East, a ‘political thriller’ that is tacky, so obviously aggressive in its message, so ham fisted in its presentation of said message and so deeply flawed in every way, is hard not to completely detest.
 |
| Oh Brit. You have about as much talent as metal bollard- but at least they serve a useful purpose |
The main ‘thrust’ of the movie is about a former FBI agent called Sarah Moss (Marling), now working for a private intelligence firm, who goes undercover into a group of eco-terrorists known as ‘The East’: people who strive to make examples of large multinational corporations by committing crimes against them.
Along the way, not only does she become ‘converted’ to their cause, she also inexplicably falls in love with their ‘charismatic’ leader Benji (Skarsgård), and then goes off on one at her boss about food waste and eats an apple out of a dustbin. In the credits at the end, she then becomes the leader of a rebellion or something- all because that man from Tru Blood shoves his dick in her face while washing her in a river, naked.
 |
| The dude from Tru Blood certainly gets his claws into our protagonist |
As you can probably already tell, The East is inherently defective. The ‘characters’ are terrible, the script is piss-poor, the acting is dreadful and the plot is incredibly slow paced, boring, preachy, and generally so jarringly nonsensical that it makes you laugh out loud.
‘Quirky’ moments include The East eating in straightjackets for no real reason except to make a boring scene more ‘interesting’ and to prove a point about Capitalism; The East getting drunk around a bonfire whilst wearing masks of other people; Juno sharing a lesbian kiss with our star which is probably meant to be hot but is instead disgusting; a man voluntarily jumping into raw sewage naked; the disturbing naked lake scene and the wholly awful but brilliantly laughable ending when Sarah eats an apple out of a trashcan screaming ‘IT’S GOOD!’.
 |
| For absolutely no reason, there's a lesbian kiss. No one enjoyed it. No one. |
But she’s convincing no one.
The rotten, awkward script, written by Marling and Batmanglij, is ridiculously unsubtle, and by the movie’s denouement I felt as if I had been kidnapped by a group of terrorists and tortured. This is because the anti-Consumerist point of the entire film is aggressively hammered into the audience with the subtly of a pneumatic drill. If you’re trying to make a point, Marling and Batmanglij, at least try to do it intelligently so that the thinking members of the audience can actually engage with it instead of tearing it to shreds.
 |
| All anyone ever does throughout the course of this movie is pout and moan... |
Marling is just a terrible terrible actress, failing to convince anyone that she can play an actual human being, let alone a conflicted woman in distress. The apple moment should become an internet meme- it’s just about one of the worst moments in movie history: it almost eclipses Jaws roaring.
‘BUT IT’S GOOD!’
 |
| An apple a day keeps you committed to your beliefs... |
Yeah, I’m sure you would think that Brit. You wrote the bloody thing.
All in all, The East is certainly not a thriller, because it fails to be at any moment thrilling. It isn’t a drama because the complete lack of believable characters and situations makes it feel like a human puppet show, although now I feel like I’ve disrespected The Muppets, because even Kermit can give a more well-rounded and realistic performance than Brit Marling ever could.
 |
| Struggling to act, struggling to write- is there anything Brit Marling actually can do well? |
There is a reason why people shouldn’t write and direct or write and act when they are unable to do either competently. Hopefully this gruesome twosome will never work again.
The East is pretentious political drivel striving desperately to be ‘deep’ and ‘powerful’ and ‘against the man’, but it fails on all levels and would probably convince audiences to embrace Consumerism even more than before.
 |
| "If I'm going down- I'm taking you with me!" |
If the face of anti-Capitalism is a frantic blonde woman stuffing half eaten apples in her mouth and screaming ‘IT’S GOOD!’ at the top of her lungs, then no one is going to be joining up to The East any time soon. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if, after seeing this movie, more people will be lining up to join the Apple world.
Ipad anyone?
0 Yorumlar