Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk Reviews

Following the masssive critical and commercial success of ‘Life of Pi’, many, including myself, were expecting a lot from Ang Lee’s next directing effort. This time, he was going for something even more experimental, a movie shot with 120 frame rate, the highest frame rate ever used in a movie (to give an idea, the previous record holder was ‘The Hobbit’ with 48 fps and a standard film has 24 fps). Unfortunately, when this movie was released, it didn’t get much love and the whole thing was pretty much considered as a failed experiment. Still, since I always had a weak spot for Ang Lee’s work, I still wanted to check it out. Well, eventually, I thought it was rather difficult to judge this movie. First of all, I have to admit it, I didn’t manage to watch this movie in its intented version, I actually saw it at home on a regular TV so the whole technical aspect was lost on me, I’m afraid. On the other hand, I’m not sure if this story really needed such a high-tech treatment. I mean, for such a huge epic blockbusters like ‘The Hobbit’ or ‘Avatar’, the material definitely could use some visual innovation but this was just a rather low-key drama. Eventually, except for the half-time show which must have been  interesting in this format, the rest of the movie was above all about the characters in some conversations involving usually only 2 or 3 people and I didn’t see how this format could have been an improvement. Anyway, as pointed out by many other viewers, the biggest issue with this movie was above all that the story was nothing really amazing. I mean, it was not bad and the cast was actually decent but it didn’t tell anything really fascinating or groundbreaking. To conclude, like everyone else, I think the whole thing was a rather failed experiment but I still think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Ang Lee’s work.