A Hole in One - review
What a movie! I enjoyed it, although using that word sounds a little odd to my own ear. Certainly, it grabbed my attention right from the beginning and I was held riveted throughout. It's a hard movie to pigeonhole. It's educational (apparently they really did lobotomies like that!); it's a period piece (portrays the American 50's beautifully); it's a sort of fable about sanity vs. insanity, and about our personal responsibility for coping with reality; it's a story about a romantic triangle; and ... it's a comedy of sorts, absurd and often funny. This last I didn't expect, but it's a very good element for this movie to have, because otherwise it would be too unrelentingly horrifying and grim. For instance, I was grinning at Billy's two bodyguards waiting outside the Agora Club door - but the scenes that followed wiped the smile right off my face... Yet even then, Billy's absurd comment about the Greek salads made me blink, and gave a little relief. I think I will watch A Hole in One again pretty soon - and I'm sure I'll find that the shock value will have lessened and I'll find it even funnier.
Meat is just great in this movie! He plays Billy, a thug and a homicidal psychopath. Meat plays a menacing character very well - Billy is raise-the-hairs-on-the-back-of-your-neck scary. And yet Billy is not a one-dimensional character. Someone told me (I don't have the original reference) that Meat had said in an interview that the character of Billy had "no redeeming qualities." Not redeeming, maybe, but Billy does have touching human qualities, at least the way Meat plays him. The scene where Billy discovers Anna with Tom is heartbreaking because Billy is so completely overcome with pain and grief that we the audience are in full sympathy with him, which is impressive because by this point in the movie, we are very, very certain we don't like Billy!! To me, this was Meat's Oscar-worthy moment. :D And in another earlier scene in the kitchen, where Billy is telling Anna that he will help her if she really wants a lobotomy, Billy walks toward Anna. As he approaches her, rather than tower over her, he bends his knees a little so that he is on her level, and kisses her on the cheek. I thought this was touching, because it contrasts so with Billy's size and personal power, as well as the attitudes of that era. And of course the funny parts are right up Meat's alley (yes, Billy, your friend sure was better off before! :lol: )
I strongly recommend this movie.
-Kathy
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