12 Angry Men (1957)

Directed by Sidney Lumet
Written by Reginald Rose

Rating: 9.75/10.00 or ****

Everyone has been faced at one time or another with being on the losing side of an argument. When everyone else disagrees with you, it is difficult to voice your opinions and your supporting evidence. Sidney Lumet shows us, in one of the greatest films ever made, how one man convinces eleven others how the "convincing" guilt of a man charged with murder is not convincing at all.

The film begins with a judge describing to the jury their duty. The judge is disinterested, almost uncaring, in his speech, suggesting the verdict is all but certain. Lumet shows us a glimpse of the man, a teenager, charged with the crime. This is the last we will see of him, but you will remember his face throughout the film. His fate lies in the hands of twelve men who do not know him.

The jury is locked into a room to decide the man's guilt or innocence. It is a hot day. Each man swelters, to varying degrees, in the heat. It is an environment prone to tension, confrontation, and anger. The twelve men at first engage in small talk amongst themselves. Some bring up the case, and how easy it will be to vote for his guilt. Others talk about their work or their plans after the deliberations. And some just stare out the window, thinking about what they are asked to decide.

The deliberations, after some time of noisy unease, begin with a vote. Eleven men vote guilty, and one votes not guilty. The man who votes not guilty is Juror #8 (Henry Fonda). He is asked to present his reasoning. At first, he provides a cautionary message: "A man's life is in our hands." He wonders how they can all vote guilty without even discussing the case. This brings about varied responses, from impatience to indignation to curiosity. Gradually, elements of the crime are told. The young man has been accused of murdering his father. A neighbor sees him running away from the apartment seconds after a thud comes from his room. A neighbor in a separate building sees the boy stabbing his father. We see the type of knife used to kill his father.

Juror #8 begins to chip away at the evidence, suggesting possible alternatives to how the crime was committed, and who by. He makes clear, on numerous occasions, that he is not saying the man is innocent. He is, however, not convinced of his guilt. Lumet and writer Reginald Rose, then, are showing us what reasonable doubt entails. A nagging feeling is not reasonable doubt. Convincing arguments should be detailed with supporting evidence regarding a juror's doubt. With time, Juror #8 begins to show us this evidence.

He first convinces a new person to listen: Juror #9 (Joseph Sweeney). His reasoning for supporting Juror #8 is interesting:

This gentleman has been standing alone against us. Now he doesn't say that the boy is not guilty, he just isn't sure. Well it's not easy to stand alone against the ridicule of others, so he gambled for support and I gave it to him. I respect his motives. The boy is probably guilty, but - eh, I want to hear more. Right now the vote is ten to two.

Now that he has at least one member willing to listen to him, he begins to show the others reasons for his doubt. He will eventually go through each element of the case, and present evidence to convince other members of the jury to also begin to doubt. The knife, for example, he easily found in a shop. He shows how the man's lack of memory regarding the movie he saw that night (his alibi) is not circumstantial evidence; it is common, especially when a major event occurs thereafter (which, of course, is his father's death). He does this by asking a series of questions to another juror. He shows how the direction of the stab wound would not match how the man would attack his father. He shows how long it would actually take his neighbor to reach the door to see the boy running out of his apartment, which does not match his statement at trial. Finally, with the help of others, he shows how the witness to the murder may have had trouble seeing the murder given her less-than-perfect eyesight.

But he faces stubborn men who take more than logic to convince them, again to varying degrees. Some are swayed by the mounting evidence of doubt. Others are less impressed. Juror #7 (Jack Warden), for example, is indifferent. He's in a hurry to go to a baseball game thereafter. Juror #11 (George Voskovec) calls him out on it, asking him how he dares to base his judgment on the fate of a man's life on whether or not he gets to see a baseball game.

Juror #10 (Ed Begley) is a stubborn old man who is clearly racist. At first, his words are subtle but stinging. Before long, his words are more obvious, and intentions more clearly malicious. There is a scene of stupendous direction and poignance, as Juror #10 spouts a long, desperate monologue in which his racism becomes fully realized. All but one of the jurors get up from the table, abandoning him and his words. Only Juror #4 (E. G. Marshall), a cold but thoughtful man who makes decisions purely on logic and reasoning, remains and tells Juror #10 that his words have been spoken and heard. "Now sit down and don't open your mouth again." After his true motive has been exposed, Juror #10 has no support for his guilty charge, and he has no choice but to change his vote to not guilty.

Juror #4 is himself not impressed, since he is most convinced by the neighbor who actually witnessed the murder. But when others begin to express their doubts that she would clearly see it, given it was nighttime and she wears glasses, he becomes convinced. There is reasonable doubt regarding the eyewitness account, and he unblinkingly changes his vote. Here is a man looked upon fondly in the film. His viewpoint differs from Juror #8, but he uses the same basic system to look at evidence.

Juror #3 (Lee J. Cobb) refuses to vote not guilty, even after the evidence has clearly been presented with reasonable doubt. His refusal is alluded to but not clearly evident until the end of the film, when the vote is 11-1 for not guilty. He is asked to provide his reasons:

Everything... every single thing that took place in that courtroom, but I mean everything... says he's guilty. What d'ya think? I'm an idiot or somethin'? Why don't cha take that stuff about the old man; the old man who lived there and heard every thing? Or this business about the knife! What, 'cause we found one exactly like it? The old man SAW him. Right there on the stairs. What's the difference how many seconds it was? Every single thing. The knife falling through a hole in his pocket... you can't PROVE he didn't get to the door! Sure, you can take all the time hobblin' around the room, but you can't PROVE it! And what about this business with the El? And the movies! There's a phony deal if I ever heard one. I betcha five thousand dollars I'd remember the movies I saw! I'm tellin' ya: every thing that's gone on has been twisted... and turned. This business with the glasses. How do you know she didn't have 'em on? This woman testified in open court! And what about hearin' the kid yell... huh? I'm tellin' ya, I've got all the facts here...

He has become enraged. He looks at a picture of his son, nearly the same age as the accused, and begins to tear up the photo. He wanted him guilty, because of the strained relationship he has with his own son. The scene is heartbreaking and perfectly acted. The rest of them are silent, saddened and maybe even sympathetic to the fellow juror's pain.

Lumet and Rose show us how jurors paint pictures and are swayed toward their biases, whether fair or not. Racism, impatience, personal problems, or dependence on certain evidence at the exclusion of other evidence -- each juror is a question mark, and no juror is the same.

The room is so warm. The tensions are so high. There is disagreement, charges of incompetence and irrelevance, accusations of looking too critically at the evidence. With time, the characters sweat more and more, their voices strain more and more, their eyes look more desperate. Each juror gets a scene in the spotlight, and each time the point is perfectly executed. And at the center is Henry Fonda, his clear and matter-of-fact portrayal masking something more personally motivated: the crushing strain of having a person's life partially in his hands.

The directorial work is first-rate. The camera peers the faces and eyes of its characters, especially during monologues. The room seems smaller and smaller throughout the film, a result of clever camera work (See several critics' reviews of the film for more information on that.). There is occasionally a noticeable din in the room, suggesting disorganization, impatience, and nervousness. And the actors give each character interaction such charge and intensity.

This is a movie any law student should see, and any potential member of a jury should take to heart. The lines are clearly drawn here between doubt and bias, reasonable doubt and unreasonable doubt, actual evidence versus circumstantial evidence. It is easy to be convinced, but it is much harder to do the convincing. It is easy to form an opinion, but no matter which one is chosen, you should be able to support it. Juror #8 says the burden of proof is on the prosecution. This is true. The defense only needs to provide reasonable doubt, not proof of innocence -- and even then, the jury can still find reasonable doubt if the defense shows none. However, for a "not guilty" plea, support for reasonable doubt is critical. A juror should decide based on interpretations of evidence, not on personal whims.

Above that, though, this is such an engrossing movie. The writing is crisp, clear, and intelligent. The acting is sheer perfection, the directorial touch and style is always correct, and the camera always shows the most revealing angle.

The vote is now 12-0. Not guilty. Juror #8 walks home. Juror #9 meets him.

Juror 9: Hey, what's your name?
Juror 8: Davis.
Juror 9: My name's McCardle. Well, so long.
Juror 8: So long.

The movie ends on the right note. Their duty is finished. The deliberations are now over. Their lives are back in motion. The man's true guilt is unknown, but the right decision was made.

Ben-Hur (1959)

Directed by William Wyler
Written by Karl Tunberg
Based on the novel by General Lew Wallace

Rating: 5.00/10.00 or **

One of America's most beloved and most rewarded films comes across, to me, as a Bible lesson. To be sure, this is somewhat intentional. After all, the subtitle is: "A Tale of the Christ". Strange, since Christ is little seen (and his face is intentionally prevented from being seen). Also strange, since Ben-Hur, the title character of the film, is front-and-center throughout the film. He sees Christ first giving him a drink when he is parched as he is forced into slavery. Ben-Hur sees him again as he is marched off to his death. And what do you suppose Ben-Hur does? He offers Christ water. I said it was a Bible lesson.

Movies generally don't work as Bible lessons, but they are often revered nonetheless. Films such as The Passion of the Christ are acclaimed by the very groups you would expect to be highly praiseworthy. And most film critics jumped on board. The Last Temptation of Christ, on the other hand, was tarred and feathered by religious groups and critics alike. It seems that, in order to be a good religious film, you have to follow the book the way the Book says it goes.

My question is: Why? We don't hold "autobiographies" to the same rigid standards. Or docudramas of actual events. Or war stories. Or anything else. Why do the stories in the Bible require such strict adherence in art forms?

The answer, it seems, is that to go "against the grain" of what's recorded in the Bible, which (of course) varies from religion to religion, is insulting. To the religion, or to God, or to those powerful enough to shout out in protest.

Well, as an amateur critic, I reserve the right to shout out at bad movies, and this is one of them. Ben-Hur is a lengthy epic about...something. I'm not quite sure, since the message is fundamentally altered from the first two-thirds to the final third. The movie preceding the intermission is a classic "betrayal" epic, with longtime friends Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) and Messala (Stephen Boyd) at odds because of the people and governments they represent. Messala is a soldier for the Romans; Ben-Hur represents the Judean people and their beliefs. Eventually, Messala condemns Ben-Hur to slavery over an accident involving a Roman soldier. His mother and sister are imprisoned in a dungeon for years.

His slavery is brutal. He helps navigate (by oar) Roman warships to and from battles. In one such battle, he saves his very slave master, Arrius (Jack Hawkins), rather than escaping slavery. Arrius rewards him by taking him in and teaching him the Roman ways of life. In fact, he is rewarded Roman citizenship, and Ben-Hur and Arrius become close friends. But Ben-Hur's desire to find out the fate of his family becomes too much, and he returns to Judea.

Of course, this is where the film begins to crash and burn. Up to this point, it was an interesting and unflinching look at Ben-Hur's character. How he develops, endures pain and suffering, helps others even when it results in more pain and suffering. He is helped along, of course, by the appearance of Christ, who offers him water when his masters refuse to let him drink. This scene was well done, but of course, manipulative. We know that Ben-Hur will return the favor, in the most unfortunate of circumstances. After all, where would the message be more effective than at Christ's crucifixion?

Ben-Hur does return to Judea, believes his mother and sister have died even though they actually are alive but suffer from leprosy, and vows to avenge Messala's betrayal. He does avenge his betrayal, and learns of his mother's and sister's fate before he dies after the inevitable confrontation.

And here -- well, here comes the Bible lesson. When Ben-Hur returns the favor to Christ, the mother and sister are cured of their leprosy as he is crucified. And the hope and power of Christ's love make the ending happy and joyous, hopeful and triumphant.

Hollow and vomitous. The film never gels the two parts to my satisfaction. After Messala's death, the movie seems disjointed, and when the focus becomes Christ's crucifixion, everything that transpired before seems to be forgotten and unimportant. It's as if we endured a long and occasionally engrossing story just to show its viewers that by "doing good to others, including God", you will be cured. I know a sermon when I see one.

Bible lessons, sermons, whatever are manipulative by definition. They encourage you to think or behave in a certain manner, rather than thinking or behaving from your own whims and experience. Art should be persuasive, demonstrative, and contemplative. This film tries, and fails, to be all three. Manipulation is not a method of persuasion; rather, it is a method of propaganda. This is what separates Ben-Hur from The Last Temptation of Christ. The former is a sermon teaching a lesson; the latter is a demonstration of an alternative viewpoint.

Scorsese was unfairly criticized for his film, often being called blasphemous or ignorant of the real goings-on behind Christ's death. Scorsese was deeply religious, and purposefully made his film in which he shows the many temptations that Jesus would surely have endured. How is that blasphemous? Because he was shown to actually consider these temptations? It's not as if he was ever led into temptation; to refuse temptation, you first need to know what those temptations are.

Ben-Hur should be criticized, instead, for being too force-feeding. Its message is positive and hopeful, but is it really valuable or flexible? This film seems much more intolerant than Scorsese's more ambiguous and thought-provoking work. Why are we not shown, for example, the Romans viewpoint? Why are Romans portrayed as simply "Rome, or be damned!"?

Ben-Hur is not demonstrative, either. We are shown Christ's crucifixion, but we are not asked to understand why he was crucified. We are shown Messala's death, but we are not asked to determine whether we should accept it as a good thing or not. We are not shown Ben-Hur's parting of ways from Arrius and his Roman citizenship. We are simply given the reasons and the interpretations we are meant to take from them. Romans are bad. Messala is evil (one-dimensional). Be nice, and you will be rewarded.

Thus, Ben-Hur is not contemplative. It doesn't make you think. It makes you infer. It doesn't have a moral choice; it teaches a lesson.

Art should expand a viewer's horizons, not contract them into one way of thought. It may give you the facts, or their version of the facts, and then let you decide. This film doesn't want you to decide anything. It wants to teach a sermon, and then for the viewer to say amen. This isn't a great movie; this is a Bible lesson. That belongs in church, not in theaters.

Rashomon (1950)

Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Written by Akira Kurosawa & Shinobu Hashimoto
Based on stories Rashomon and In a Grove by Ryunosoke Akutagawa

Rating: 8.75/10.00 or *** 1/2

Kurosawa's great works may be most recognized by Rashomon, a film that defied the use of flashbacks by making them untrustworthy. Flashbacks, often used before and since as omnipotent memories of events as they actually unfolded, are told here as memories of events as humans have told them. The truth is not what we see at all, nor what we hear. Instead we hear a version of a story, which is contradicted by someone else. The flashback is no longer truth; instead, it is a visionary creation.

Of Kurosawa's many acclaimed films, Rashomon may be the most innovative and the most important. Rashomon helped to create a philosophy to be filmed time and time again. Here, we are told a story of a rape of a woman and a murder of her husband through four points of view. One is supernatural (from the husband, who is dead), one from the bandit who raped the woman, one from the wife, and one from a witness. No story matches, and the three involved in the attack each claim themselves as the murderer (making the husband's story one of suicide).

We are told this story in present day by three men. The priest (Minoru Chiaki), the commoner (Kichijiro Ueda), and the woodcutter (Takashi Shimura). The priest and the woodcutter hear the stories during a summons of the wife and bandit. The commoner meets with them afterwards, as a result of a pouring rain forcing them to take shelter. As the priest and woodcutter tell the three stories, the commoner is revealed to be the source of reason. He is not surprised by the clashing of stories.

The film, as a result, is a story of human selfishness, witness exaggerations and fabrications, and guilt. No solution is provided, but a resolution is found. The resolution involves those random acts of humanity that are few but cherished. The human spirit is a dark but hopeful thing, the very reason to be discouraged and encouraged at the same time.

Kurosawa is clever in his presentation. The flashbacks involve common consistencies between or among them, teasing the viewer into thinking that certain actions were more likely to have occurred than others. In some depictions, the bandit (Toshiro Mifune) is sympathetic; in others, he is cruel and heartless. Interestingly, the wife (Machiko Kyo) is given a similar depiction, making a true victim hard to depict. Stunningly, the husband (Masayuki Mori) is shown to be innocent in one flashback and malicious in another. One flashback shows the wife as an authoritarian; another shows the husband as domineering.

Kurosawa implements several visual and stylistic cues that progress the proceedings. His use of rain in the present is an excellent contrast to the sunny past. The woodcutter's run through the woods is a nice way of transitioning the scene from the present to the past. The camera often pans the sky and canopy, entrapping the viewer in the highly claustrophobic woods. The close-ups of the wife and bandit as they tell their stories are revealing. Again, Kurosawa employs the hyperbolic voices for his characters, making the words spoken tinged with urgency.

And the present-day scenes are important because they reveal the true motivation behind the movie. In essence, the movie asks the viewer why we should be proud of the human spirit. It dares us to think of reasons. And then, it helps us find them, not by resolving the story, which is clearly not resolvable -- even if the true story is revealed, would we believe it? Instead, he presents us with another situation, and gives us a more hopeful outcome. Why? Because this is what life is all about. Choices. Some we make are bad; some are good. And always, there will be versions of those stories to tell.

The film's fourth version of the events is given by an eyewitness, the woodcutter. This is important, because he is the most frustrated by the contrast of stories told. This either means he cannot believe the other stories would clash so strongly with his because they are self-damning, because he remembers them so differently, or because he wants to remember them so differently. At the beginning, he says that he does not understand. Has he willed himself to believe something that did not transpire? Did culture bias his story? Did his sympathies with one individual cloud his memories?

We don't know. And he doesn't. The movie Big Fish reveals this human tendency. In it, a dying father and husband, known for his larger-than-life stories, talks about how he is dying as he is dying. The story is fairy-taleish, almost operatic in its visual and melodramatic splendor. And as his death by story is revealed, that in the middle of a pond in the arms of his wife, he actually dies in a bed with family at his side. We remember things, or predict things, by exaggerating them. Whether by making the story more profound, more unrealistic, more dramatic. But we always remember what we say we have seen. The woodcutter doesn't understand because he is told what he doesn't remember.

Miller's Crossing (1990)

Directed by Joel Coen
Written by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen

Rating: 8.50/10.00 or *** 1/2

The camera looks up at the canopy. The sky seems unreachable with trees so tall. And so many. There are many inescapable settings in Miller's Crossing. There are large rooms full of old-fashioned decor. There are apartments that look like large, empty studios. The streets are lined with bars, auditoriums, and businesses. No houses, though. And Miller's Crossing, in the wooded lands out of town, have those tall trees. Once you go into the woods, it is almost impossible to escape.

An opening image of the film is a hat, worn by the film's protagonist Tom Reagan (Gabriel Byrne). The hat blows around in the breeze, almost out of sight from the camera, but deeper into those woods. The melancholy Irish music often hints at the struggle surrounding Tom's chase to find the hat and wear it again.

The hat, we come to find, represents Tom's internal struggle between his heart and his mind. His heart is found in two places. One is with his mob boss, Leo (Albert Finney), firm but also forgiving. He is loyal and has a heart. He is not into the mob life for the crime, and maybe not even the power. He is in it because he's good at it. He's a salesman, cheerful and persuasive. It may be glory he is after now. He doesn't seem vindictive or petulant.

Leo is in love with Verna Bernbaum (Marcia Gay Harden), a young dame with a fierce sense of independence and intelligence. She fends for herself but is deeply vulnerable. She is torn between her love for Tom and her sympathy for Leo. She returns Leo's affections to keep her brother Bernie (John Turturro) out of trouble from competing crime boss Johnny Caspar (Jon Polito), who wants Bernie's blood because of his betrayal and refusal to pay his dues. Johnny talks to Leo to convince him to stop protecting Bernie. His argument often involves the word "principle", a key theme throughout the film. Principles, we come to find, are a crime life ideal and almost never a reality. The closest to living with those principles is Tom, who always seems like he chooses what he should be doing, but is clearly driven by his heart -- much the same as Leo and Verna.

The plot thickens as we learn that Bernie is not as ignorant as he seems, Caspar's second-hand man Eddie Dane (J.E. Freeman) has a secret regarding his loyalty to Bernie, and Tom's refusal to kill another is not as black-and-white as it is at first presented. To describe the storyline is futile. We are much more interested in how the layers of the characters are revealed. How each character's motives are driven not by occupation but by their love or loyalty for others. Eddie Dane seems and looks evil, and is required to. This is what Caspar wants. But his loyalty to Bernie, only revealed subtlely and with time, makes his drive to make Tom and Leo suffer extreme. Caspar, meanwhile, is so driven by his principles that he is blinded by everyone's important disregard of them.

Leo's love for Verna costs him his friendship with Tom, as Tom reveals his relationship with her. But, we see that Tom does it only to save Leo. But the words have been spoken, regardless of what went on behind them. We see that Verna's true loyalty lies with family, but she is torn apart by her feelings for both Leo and Tom. At one point, she tells Tom that they deserve each other because of their mutual betrayal of Leo. Leo's response seems to agree.

Above all of the character interactions and complications is a city torn apart by gang warfare. The competing gangsters wage war throughout the city. Law enforcement can only watch and enforce whatever the more powerful gang's whims desire. The war ends up stockpiling casualties, with each character's death appropriately presented. Some scenes of violence are given a humorous exaggeration; others are given a brutal journalistic feel.

Miller's Crossing is a melancholy noir. It has elements of Sophocles, in which the destinies of the characters seem to be determined by their past actions. But each character is given a chance to live; some just choose their heart or their job over their lives. The dialogue throughout sparkles, as unreal in everyday life as those vast, empty rooms. The words and the scenes do not match the actions and the times (perfectly, anyway), and they should not. The words are the only sincere things to go by here. The actions are not. Often, we do not know the motives behind the actions until after the words are spoken. The words are our sources to the character's souls. And those vast, empty rooms cage them into this life and these choices. The words seem unreal, almost like the ultimate facade, but they are the only source of sincerity in the film.

This is one of the Coens' best films. Their presentation, as unique as ever, is sadly too unconventional for popular success. This movie, in particular, was overshadowed by two other gangster films that year: The Godfather III and GoodFellas. This film is much better than the first and almost as good as the latter. The Coens craftily execute their plot, as always, but they remain focused on the characters. In essence, we don't care what happens to the characters so much as why they choose to do what they do. We care about their motives. How interesting and ultimately effective to explain the plot by characters, rather than vice versa.

When I re-watch Miller's Crossing, I keep coming back to the hat. Tom explains to Verna in one scene:

Verna: What're you chewin' over?
Tom: Dream I had once. I was walkin' in the woods, I don't know why. Wind came up and blew me hat off.
Verna: And you chased it, right? You ran and ran, finally caught up to it and you picked it up. But it wasn't a hat anymore and it changed into something else, something wonderful.
Tom: Nah, it stayed a hat and no, I didn't chase it. Nothing more foolish than a man chasin' his hat.

Tom always chased his hat. He finds it after a poker game in Verna's possession. He puts it back on after he says goodbye to Leo. Tom finds his hat, but in the process, we see his heart. He wears his hat after his most devastating decisions. His heart is broken, but his mind will heal it.

He's a foolish man. But he's my kind of fool.

The Birds (1963)

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Screenplay by Evan Hunter
Story by Daphne Du Maurier

Rating: 5.25/10.00 or **

There are films that gain a sort of fan momentum. Hitchcock's own Vertigo, for example, was a bomb at the box office and was critically a toss-up at the time of its initial release. Now, it is widely acclaimed as one of the best films ever made. Many films gain this momentum in generally one of two categories: the "independent" cult-like fanatics (for example, Donnie Darko) or the critical "think-twice" (for example, Star Wars). However, there is a third category, and this is the one The Birds falls under. And that is director recognition.

I sometimes wonder, for example, if many people like Steven Spielberg films because they are directed by Steven Spielberg. I can't imagine anyone liking War of the Worlds, but they are out there. The critical success of Minority Report remains a mystery to me. And the shocking scenes of war in Saving Private Ryan seem to have blinded some critics from noticing the lack of thematic weight or plot reasonability after the 30-minute D-Day sequence. Spielberg is capable of great movies (Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Schindler's List) and even great moments within good movies (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Jurassic Park, Amistad) -- but he's a wildly uneven director who tends to manipulate his viewers more often than encouraging them to react for themselves (E.T., AI, Empire of the Sun).

The same goes with Hitchcock. Hitchcock has made at least one superb feature (Notorious) and several very good ones (Psycho, Rear Window, Rope), but others remain a mystery to me regarding their popularity (To Catch a Thief, Vertigo, Spellbound, The Man Who Knew Too Much, North by Northwest). Perhaps the biggest mystery is The Birds, which is a messy film full of manipulative character subplots amidst a danger completely external to the characters. Strangely enough, I think the film is popular because the danger comes from -- birds.

Now, it is somewhat admirable, if not a little quirky, that Hitchcock and writers would think of birds to bring about suspense. It sure beats the old standbys of chainsaw masochists, characters with scissors, needles, and knives in their skin, or characters you can't even see from time to time -- especially when these characters are laughably one-dimensional and predictable. And at least the birds are merciless in their targets. They'll target kids, women, grandparents, anybody. I suppose that's what builds up the tension and suspense in this film.

But, if not, Hitchcock always supplies his dose of ambiguous character motives and manipulations. Such as how Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) is spooked by her new man's mother, Lydia (Jessica Tandy). Or how her new man's ex, Annie Hayworth (Suzanne Pleshette), seems somewhat distant but still eerily connected to him. And the chemistry between Melanie and boy-toy Mitch (Rod Taylor) is observable, with a combination of amusement and camaraderie. But the mysteries behind the motives and the seeming unacceptance of Melanie don't matter to the birds.

Which is a problem, see, because the movie may as well have starred any family, any loner, any townsfolk. Why do they focus on these characters? Why should we care?

Hitchcock's best suspense films were always carried by its characters, who always supplied the suspense themselves. In general, there was at least one villain, sometimes seen, sometimes not, that always drove the plot forward -- and the tension upward -- in his films. And the villain's actions typically were not focused upon -- but instead, everyone's responses to them -- maybe even the villains themselves.

It's not interesting to see characters respond to a huge supply of malicious birds. They are, understandably, scared. They protect their property, close up their rooms, run for their lives, and so on. The brilliance of Jaws was that the shark was commonly unseen, only assumed to be there. That, and it was focused on three characters who had different motives behind their intentions of killing the shark. That's missing here.

An overall plot is, too. This is most noticeable when the film ends. The scene is unforgettably haunting, but also hollow and disappointing. I sit there afterwards and ask myself, "What was the point? To be scared?"

I'm not really sure what the point was. That birds can take back what we thought was ours? That people can be afraid of things they see as commonplace? That they should be? That they could be?

And why these characters? Why do I care that Melanie is a rich girl from San Francisco who is intrigued enough by the confident demeanor of a man to drive up to his home out of town to send him lovebirds? Why is the mother's authoritarianism interesting or even important?

I don't know the answer to these questions, and after watching the film a few times, I don't think there are answers to these questions. That doesn't make good suspense. That doesn't even make a good movie.