You don't get the tone of Die Hard without this movie -- right down to the shrewd, crabby New Yorker facing off against an effete European over a radio -- but you also don't get Ghostbusters, Inside Man or Q: The Winged Serpent either. Call it Grouchy Manhattan Genre Cinema.
Some of the more New York-centric gags hit a bit softer with the Toronto crowd, but that ending landed like an A-bomb.
My five favourite things about this movie:
1. The open concept warehouse apartment where everyone sleeps, eats and fucks in the same room and there's one big vintage couch with an arched Victorian back right in the centre that was absolutely dragged off a lawn.
2. The way standard def b-roll of 2000s-era Toronto is seamlessly integrated with newly-shot handicam footage with the characters.
3. ALL the in-character handicam footage that -- as we learned at the Q&A afterwards --…
Very good, lots of juice, but also not quite as sudsy and bitchy as I was led to believe? I had heard about people gasping and yelling at plot twists, but I felt like this ultimately achieves a kind of serenity by the end. Feels like this will be a very easy rewatch, and one I’ll be able to enjoy much more on its own terms.
