Pluskylang Great Film overall

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Cody One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Wizard-8 Although I don't know any New Yorkers and I have never been to New York City, I have a sneaking suspicion that residents of New York City will best appreciate "Noise". The problem confronted by the movie's protagonist - car alarm noises - is presented in a way that suggests it is a big problem in that particular city. And the bureaucracy the protagonist faces throughout also seems to assume its audience knows all too wellThat isn't to say that non-residents won't be able to be entertained by the movie. There are some big laughs that can be appreciated by just about anyone, my favorite being when Tim Robbins parks his souped-up truck in front of the mayor's office at the climax. Actually, most of the humor is not that laugh-out-loud funny, going instead to put a smile on the viewers' faces. You'll be able to relate to what the Tim Robbins character does even if you follow the law and are not a New York City resident.Speaking of Tim Robbins, there is a weakness with his character. To a degree he's kind of aloof and hard to read. We don't really get to learn much about him before he starts his vigilante actions. And once he gets going, he is still a bit puzzling. There has to be more driving this character, but what? The movie is still entertaining enough, but I wish the filmmakers had explored the working of the mind of this character some more.

Roland E. Zwick 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.

meeza Pardon the pun noise I am about to "audiolize" in this film review of the dark dramedy "Noise". Sorry if I am being too pun noisy. "Noise" stars Tim Robbins as David Owen, a New Yorker with a wife & a kid who is fed up with all the city noise mostly of car alarms and secondary beepers. Therefore, he embarks on a vigilante venture and wrecks the cars with alarms sounding off. Do not get alarmed but Owen becomes so obsessed with this that he actually creates an alter ego in him called "The Rectifier". But "The Rectifier" does run into obstacles in his "noise off crusade" by being arrested twice and irritating those in city government most notably the New York Governor. So it becomes quite a "David vs. Goliath" show for poor David. Even though when he does get arrested, not one accuses him of being "The Rectifier". Consequently, Owen's madness does create some domestic noise in his family life when his wife Helen leaves him and her daughter Chris starts to have problems in school. Owen tries to rectify his domestic problems but to no avail. Owen then meets a free spirit woman named Ekaterina who joins in The Rectifier's cause and helps him think of some political avenues he could take to fully solve the noise problem. And she even invites David to partake in some bedroom noise, which of course he has no problems with. Writer-Director Henry Bean's film is a very enticing one, and I do have to give him props for the originality of it; but Mr. Bean here was pretty much silent in developing a compelling plot structure, in both the writing & directing. Tim Robbins was commendable as Owen but the sporadic overacting did not deserve a buzz as one of the premier acting performances of the year. The supporting performances of William Hurt as Mayor Schneer, Bridget Moynahan as Helen Owen, Margarita Levieva as Ekaterina, and Billy Baldwin as the Mayor's Chief of Staff were of mediocre thespian noise quality. The premise and message of "Noise" is an important one, but too bad it got caught up in an "over the top" plot line which tempted me at times to turn off the "Noise". *** Average

A.N. I would have liked this movie to focus on a lot more than car alarms. It shouldn't have been a comedy either, considering the serious stress caused by modern noise.Depending on where you live, car alarms are a variable nuisance, and this movie dwells too much on them. Alarm owners are at least trying to thwart crime, and they ARE effective if the owner is nearby and alert. In a metropolis like NYC where people can't park near their dwellings, I can see how alarms would be more of an uncontrolled problem.This movie makes it seem like nobody is paying attention to their alarms, which isn't true in many cases. It even semi-glorifies a car thief, making the alarm into the bumbling villain.Subwoofer bass is far more deliberate and has become a form of terrorism on those who endure it. This applies to loud stereos in cars, apartments and condos, or nearby homes, which are completely under the control of perpetrators who belligerently treat their abuse as a "right."Noise seems a lot worse when you know some evil scumbag is in direct control of it, and doing it to snub your "right to quiet enjoyment." Noise should be divided into categories of background, incidental and deliberate, with the latter being a felony if repeated too often.