Bad, Bad, Bad Terrible Bad Movie
I have this friend who said, “You have to watch Donnie Darko.” So, I promptly put acquiring a copy in motion and once acquired spent part of the day, today, watching it. It was, perchance, one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. I was told that it was a defining movie of that decade (I am guessing early 90’s since, according to IMDB.com it came out in ’91, and yet, unlike movies of the 80’s that people still watch and still remember that helped define what it meant to grow up in that era), Donnie Darko is not a movie that defines anything in my life or one that I am certain I want to watch again. I haven’t discarded it yet, but man, I gotta tell you, it was possibly one of the worst experiences I’ve ever gone through.
There are people that, I would imagine, see something in that movie. It was made. Some group or company put a lot of money into it. The actors did as good a job as they could with the material that they had. But the acting was stifled. The dialogue was forced. And, above everything else, it had Patrick Swayze in it which, regardless of anything else, he pulls down the movie to just underneath a “B” level movie. Which is kind of sad because you can’t get beneath a “B” grade outside of “home video – it was better than home video. According to IMDB.com Patrick Swayze has about 45 screen credits to his name and has worked semi-regularly since 1979, hitting his stride in the 80’s. Like many other actors of his era, he is a pretty boy that ain’t so pretty no more.
Regardless, Donnie Darko is a disturbing romp through who knows what. The only vocabulary that is coming to mind is all blue and negative. I would’ve walked out had I watched in the theater and I, personally, wouldn’t suggest it to anyone else to watch or experience. Bad, bad, bad movie. Bad movie. It was a bad move. Bad movie. BAD! Bad movie. I’d say it another way, but truth told, it was just a bad movie.