Gerry

Conceptually bold and rapturously beautiful Gerry, a minimalist landscape film that's unlike anything on the American independent scene.

Watching Gus Van Sant's Gerry is the cinematic equivalent of watching paint dry. I mean that as high praise.

Somewhere between profound and ludicrous, kind of like a cross between "Waiting for Godot" and "Dude, Where's My Car?"

If it were a landscape painting, Gerry would deserve a place in the National Gallery. But as a movie...deserves its own wing in The Old Curiosity Shop.

Long takes do not a masterpiece make, and the suspicion that the whole thing is a lark is only bolstered by Damon and Affleck's inability to contain their giggles.

In the end, Gerry is beyond the simple question of pleasure. Seeing it may be no fun at all, but then discomfort is part of the price one pays in learning.

Gerry is ragingly bad art that contributes to a definition of independent film as something no one would want to sit through.

I finally concluded the Death Trilogy of Gus Van Sant, ironically with the film that started it. To begin with Gerry is not a film for everyone. If you do not like films that lack a frontal narrative, forget it. This is a slow and contemplative film and therefore I was not surprised to hear that it was inspired on Béla Tarr's work. Of course Van Sant is not Béla Tarr and although I can give him the benefit of understanding that he was exploring other directions as a filmmaker, it's also fair to emphasize that by then he was already an accomplished director so this film stays in between because There's quality in it, but not quality that is known that Van San can reach.

Uninteresting and not engaging. I usually don't have a problem with films that are "slow" but this film isn't slow in the way that it takes a while to get into it's "slow" in the way that it's boring and you never get into it. It's not all around terrible it's just not very good.

I gave it 1 point because it did one thing well; it made me feel exactly what the characters were feeling. Unfortunately, what the characters felt was lost, desperate and at some points in intense pain. It doesn't have any metaphors or philosophies to analyse because it has fewer words in the script than most films have on the back of the DVD box. If you like long, silent, beautiful views of desert scenery feel free to try this, as it's all you'll get. Though you could always just go on the Internet, search for a photograph of a desert and stare at that for 2 hours for much the same effect.