On Sunday night I had my usual 3 month ear treatment for my allergies, as is common for all people who are chronically and unendingly sick for no apparent reason. It's just a quick flush of my ears to keep them from swelling too much because of whatever allergy du jour I am suffering from.
It's nothing big, takes maybe an hour all told, but does require me to lie on the couch with my head perfectly sideways for two long stretches of time. This is not so much a hardship, seeing as that's how I spend the majority of my weekends anyway. Usually my reasoning for doing so is less defined, like "oh, I was out late last night (until 11:00!)," or "I have to go to work in a couple of days, I really should conserve my strength." Now that I had a genuine excuse, lying on the couch was an excellent, guilt-free chance at laziness.
The problem I had though, was that the treatment leaves me deaf for the duration, since while the medicine is acting my ear is totally closed off. This made watching TV an issue, as the speaking component tends to add a lot to the pretty, pretty pictures that are flashing by. And closed captioning was out of the question; since my head was at a 90 degree angle to the TV and I don't possess the mental wherewithal to read vertically.
So what is a person to do? In my case, I decided to watch the latest movie in our Blockbuster queue in complete silence, and just fill in the dialogue in my head as it went along. You would think this would be difficult, especially seeing as it was a movie I had never seen before. Until I tell you the title of the movie (The Hitcher) and you realize that if anything, the actual dialogue in the movie probably would have detracted from the overall experience.
(Note: Wildly Extensive, All Encompassing SPOILERS are upcoming for the entire film. On the bizarre chance that you actually care for a single second about the plot behind this movie and have not yet experience the (wrong-kind-of) horror of it firsthand, I would recommend skipping this post entirely. And also seriously reevaluating your priorities in life.)
Y'all, deeply and truly - there has never been a more painfully telegraphed movie since the age of silent films. I didn't hear a single word any of the cast members said, but I bet I could give you just as good a synopsis as anyone who was unfortunate enough to see and hear the whole thing without the hindrance (aid?) of ear medication.
And okay, I know that people always say that movies should "show, not tell" in order to get their message across, but at some point you reach the overkill stage. And in this movie, I'm pretty sure we reached that stage approximately 20 minutes in, when we were treated to our 5th close up of Sean Bean's face looking as menacing as possible. And then again in the 21st minute when we got our 42nd close up of Sophia Bush looking scared.
I suppose I could have potentially gotten a little confused when the protagonists stole a cop car and started what seemed to be a multi-state high speed chase (with helicopter!). But the movie helpfully cleared all that up when it had Sean Bean kill every police officer and destroy every police car (and almost the helicopter!) involved, without so much as blinking.
And then for good measure, killed off the main character hot guy (In the most awesome and ridiculous way possible. Seriously, that was the best part of the movie by a mile.). At that point, I rapidly lost interest.
Without the particular brand of attention grabbing that only a cute guy can provide, I got intensely bored and tried to take on the near insurmountable task of misinterpreting the most obvious movie ever, with the remaining 15 minutes. Was there any way Sophia Bush could be interpreted as the villain and Sean Bean the tragic anti-hero, arrested for the wrong crime, a la Harrison Ford in The Fugitive? This was my new quest and I attempted it with every fiber of my being.
Sadly, I think I failed. Primarily because immediately after my vow, Sean Bean totally ripped some guy's throat out, shot another policeman in the head, and then did the same to a third. Shortly afterwards I thought I might make a go of it when, for some unknown reason, Sophia Bush stole the last remaining policeman's gun, leaving him helpless and trapped in a crashed car to die, and released Sean Bean from the back of a locked police vehicle to finish the job for her. But in the end, even when she smoked him with a goddamn shotgun, I still didn't feel like I came anywhere near my goal. I mean, her death count was only 1. I'm pretty sure at final count Sean had at least 14, two of which were kids and one in which he literally ripped a guy in half.
Sadly, no one wins with this abomination of a movie.
On the plus side though, with or without sound, I can recommend that no one ever, ever, ever again watch this movie.
I'm glad I could be of service.
Oh, and hey, now my ears are super clear.
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