Big Nothing

In this sinister comedy about a blackmail scheme amongst disgruntled call-centre employees, attempts are made to veil its insipidness through a series of banal, gimmicky plot twists which leave the audience more confused than riveted. Although convoluted storylines are formulaic and exhaustingly predictable, the confusion emanates from the discontinuity of Andrea's filmmaking. One wonders whether the grating dissonance between understated, indie-music-laden scenes and those that would look more at home in a Vin Diesel film (supported by pounding Rammstein tracks) is a deliberate decision by the French director. While the film does not completely fail in its genre, the dialogue comes across as stilted and is overacted to a cringe-worthy degree, especially by Schwimmer and McElhone. The last ten minutes of the film are somewhat engaging, though the final twist is markedly derivative of Shallow Grave. One of the film's only noteworthy strengths is its stellar soundtrack (barring, of course, some of the more XXX-esque songs). [Ilani Blanke]