|
SYNOPSIS:
What can a man do if he's uncapable of conquering his beloved one? What can he do if he's hoplessly in love? What if he has the money but not the manners? What if this time money can't buy love and the usual dating chat is not enough? Tamás Sas' new movie is looking for the eternal questions of romantic comedies.
MOVIE
REVIEW
So they say there’s this universal language called love, and it doesn’t matter whether how it’s talked about. You can have one English speaking man and a French speaking woman together in a setting – and if there is love between the two of them, it doesn’t matter that they do not understand each other linguistically. So it doesn’t matter where a romantic movie originates from. The universal language of love can be enjoyed by anyone from any corner of the globe. But if it is a been there done that love story that breaks no new ground, no matter what language this movie is in, the power of love won’t feel that great – and that is the takeaway after we watched this Hungarian movie about, yes, love.
The story premise is rather interesting to begin with: There exists a dating agency “SOS Love!” (Yes, with the exclamation mark to indicate the joy of being in love) which helps men to get the women of their dreams fall in love with them. And this is done through the assistance of devices like closed circuit televisions, microphones, mobile phones and other gadgets which would make James Bond proud. Along the way, you get side plots like business rivalry from another agency (that one helps women seduce men) and the owner being unlucky in love himself. And you know everyone in the movie is in store for a happy ending.
So there is really no surprise here, if you are hoping to be pleasantly surprised by the different strands of stories in the movie. Also, there isn’t much to smile about with the characters portrayed in the 96 minute movie. Besides the lack of originality in characterisation (play this game of identifying in which other movies you have seen such character profiles), the plot setups aren’t the most exciting we have seen in the recent slew of feel good chick flicks.
The cast played by Monika Ullman, Ivan Fenyo and Sandor Csanyi are not familiar faces in this part of the world, so their performances will not be nitpicked on. The casual and effortless acting from them is watch-able, but also rather forgettable.
Despite the movie being in Hungarian, it is presented in a typical Hollywood format – complete with radio friendly love tunes at the appropriate moments to illustrate the characters’ states of minds. Maybe it’s just us not being in the mood for love, but this romantic comedy just does not hit the right spot to make us feel the power of love.
SPECIAL FEATURES :
This Code 3 DVD contains no extra features.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
There is nothing to complain about the disc’s visual transfer, and is presented in a Dolby Digital 2.0 audio soundtrack.
MOVIE RATING:
 
DVD
RATING :
Review
by John Li
|
