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88This is very much a French intellectual cineaste's idea of a B thriller, and hence is as far from innocent in its genre as you can get. Which is not to say that Assayas deals in bad faith.
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80Even in Boarding Gate, a modestly scaled, self-consciously tawdry exercise in genre appropriation, Mr. Assayas manages to say more about what it is to be human -- to desire, to fear, to be alone -- than most filmmakers say in a lifetime.
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70Argento always gives us something to watch, and maybe even something to fear. I've never seen her in a movie where I haven't been at least a little bit scared of her.
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70The plot may be murky, but actress Asia Argento is a clear and commanding force throughout.
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67Boarding Gate's surfaces are often so staggeringly beautiful that its superficiality becomes forgivable, with the pleasant distractions of Assayas' multi-layered frames, Argento's sinewy allure, and snippets of Brian Eno ambience on the soundtrack. Why can't all movies this inane be this accomplished?
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63Seriously flawed and not for every taste, the film was shot quickly and on the cheap, and is driven by Argento's slurred, scratchy voice and Bette Davis eyes.
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58The oddball cast, by the way, includes Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon, who is infinitely more convincing speaking Cantonese than she is in her (presumably native) English.
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50Call it a victory of conviction over substance, but when Argento is onscreen, you look at her - not because she's good, but because she's there in a way nobody else is.
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40There's basically only one reason to see Olivier Assayas's self-consciously hypermodern, meta-sleazy, English-French-Chinese-language globo-thriller Boarding Gate, and her name is Asia Argento.
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33This one is just murk.
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30Boarding Gate was evidently made quickly and cheaply, and parts of it are fun. It's too bad there's no real viewer equivalent--that you can't WATCH a film quickly and cheaply.
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30It's time for this talented man (Assayas) to pull himself together. He may have something serious to say about the brutal impersonality of global capitalism, yet he's caught somewhere between insight and exploitation.
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A ridiculous poseur thriller that seems to be made up of the slow moments from Hong Kong action films and Euro-flashy stuff like "Run Lola Run."
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25Draggy and incoherent.
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20Thrills and drama are left standing on the tarmac in Boarding Gate a limp, sleazy inanity by renowned French critic cum erratic helmer Olivier Assayas.
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