The Power Of The Dog (Netflix-2021) How much do we despise this movie?
Oh let us count the ways.........
A film like this is the first sign of upcoming awards season frenzy that finally comes to a close with the Academy Awards telecast......like those gathering black clouds of a storm cell before a killer tornado begins forming.......
It's a prime example of unwatchable, unfit-for-human-consumption culture-vulture sludge that exists solely for one reason and one reason alone........
.......to suck up all variety of awards and mountainous amounts of undeserved, unwarranted praise for its 'artistry' and powerful insights into the 'human condition'.......
What a film like 'The Power Of The Dog' is not designed to do is engage an audience on any level.......no normal human being could sit through it for more than ten minutes without either falling asleep or paying bills on their phones.
Film critics who get paid to write reviews will duly watch it in its entirety without having their eyes pinned open like Malcolm McDowell in "A Clockwork Orange"......after all, it's their job.
The rest of us can feel free to doze and believe us, when it comes to lulling us into La La Land, this film worked faster than chug-a-lugging a family size bottle of Benadryl........
But in our mission to provide beloved BQ visitors with the best, most honest reviews possible, we cowboy'd up, rewound the damn thing again and kept our eyes pinned to it til the bitter end.......
So......a few brief (and we mean brief) impressions......
Seems to be a half-assed amalgam of "Brokeback Mountain" and "There Will Be Blood" with Benedict Cucumber-Head or whatever the hell his name is heaving around like he's channeling his inner Daniel Day Lewis......
We've viewed oil paintings that moved faster than this film.......
The plot? Suppressed homosexuality, way out west in 1925 Montana. (You can pick up the actual dreary details in a thousand other reviews, that is if you haven't read them already....)
And the ridiculous kicker......after the film has finally lurched to its much prayed for conclusion, it's revealed to be nothing more than a low grade murder story with an ironic twist......the kind of nasty-twist melodrama that the old "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" TV show use to achieve in 23 minutes......(as opposed to the glacial 126 minute torture-from-hell this film inflicts....)
Any redeeming qualities? One - the Kirsten Dunst performance. Remarkable, quietly, effectively powerful and the one and only thing in this movie worth rewarding.......if only it were in a movie worthy of it.
For Kirsten Dunst alone, we're tempted to hand out at least 1 star.......
Nah......but hopefully the awards she'll no doubt gather up for this film will open the door to roles in films equal to her talent.
There's no way in this world or any other that we'd hand "The Power Of The Dog" even 1 single star.....
It's a gold plated, bona fide, full fledged AFH....,an Abomination From Hell. Approach it only if you're a dedicated, die hard awards season completist.....
And keep that family-size Benadryl handy.....you'll need it.
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