CLOSER
Review by !BELMO!
(also known as "Jude Law's 4th movie at the time")

There are very few movies I will attempt to mouth off about. Most of these movies are well known and have been pecked to death like a man in a pigeon coop wearing a birdfeed bodysuit.

This time, however, I'll probably be talking about a movie you saw a commercial for and either said "oh I wanted to see that but never got around to it" or you'll say "what movie again?"

"Closer," a movie that got very little press, very little exposure while it was out and very little stars as well, is the story of Jude Law absolutely fucking with everyone he comes in contact with. Filmed in London, it's finally a movie where Jude Law can actually be British instead of pretending to be an Englishman pretending to be an American too much and failing. He meets Natalie Portman playing a stripper as she gets hit by a car.

Before we go any further, no you don't get to see Natalie's Portmans in this movie. Let's just get that out of the way. She comes damn close. However, you do get to see residual breasts around her, but if you're watching a boring movie like Closer for the sake of breasts, you must be the same person getting annoyed during pornos because the plot keeps getting held up by all those boring sex scenes. It makes that much sense.

Julia Roberts is also in this movie, rounding out the cast nicely. And I do mean nicely, know what I mean? Nudge Nudge, Wink Wink, Say No More?!!?! Actually, no she doesn't. To me, Julia Roberts has the face of a horse and while it is an attractive horse, it is a horse none the less. She unimpressively flip flops back and forth between Jude Law and Clive Owens (you know who he is, trust me. Go to the imdb.com and find his ugly mug. It's like Julia Roberts choosing between Jude's face and his hairy asshole) and while she does it, she seems to be constipated, but she's supposed to be acting like she's choosing between the two men.

The movie was based on the play of the same name by Patrick Marber. I'm unfamiliar with Mr. Marber's other work, but if it is anything like this movie was, I'd guess there were clubs around the world to stop Patrick Marber from further created work. The entire movie, you felt like there had to be more. More characters, more plot twists, more character depth. You wait patiently, you sit through Jude throwing a hissy fit, then Clive, then Julia, then Natalie, then you don't care anymore, then there's some strippers and you sit up like "hey this is going to get interesting" then it doesn't and then it's over and you're like "goddamn it, I'm calling the cable company right now to get my money back for this pay-per-view." I felt like "Closer" was just a cocktease title, like the whole time you feel like "I'm getting closer to this movie actually doing something. That must be it. That's what the title means."

My only suggestion of what the title suggests is that you get closer to death by 1 1/2 hours and you don't realize what a crime it was that these people took that time away from you. So don't let them. I watched it so you don't have to. I've just saved you almost 2 hours of your life. If you get any closer to this movie than reading these words, I would hope it would be to throw a copy of this movie into a tall flame. If you love dry, trite British love stories where the females are American or if you are making it a point to watch all 25 of Jude Law's movies in the past 2 years, then by all means, take this movie for a spin. If you bore easily, don't bore easily, breathe or are clinically dead, don't get closer to "Closer"

-Belmo