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July 13, 2008 Stop Hating M. Night!Alright, people need to lay off M. Night Shyamalan. Sure, he is a little cocky (he stated that The Village was one of the greatest ideas ever) and his films have seemed to have dipped in quality, but people, come on! This is the same man that created The Sixth Sense, one of the greatest suspense thrillers of all time. There are not many directors out there that can say the same thing about a genre film. One of the things that hurts M. Night is that he basically did it in his first time out with that genre. His first two films really were not seen by anyone, so The Sixth Sense was essentially, to many, his first time at the plate. It created a monstrous amount of hype, had all the critics foaming at the mouth and was even nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. It put him on the map. The Sixth Sense has one of the greatest twist endings of all time, up there with The Usual Suspects, Fight Club, Memento, etc. So to some extent, M. Night has experienced the Orson Welles effect, wherein his first time out, he created a groundbreaking masterpiece and has yet to match that quality five films and nearly 10 years later. (Orson Welles created Citizen Kane, which, to many, is the greatest film ever made. He never topped it throughout his entire career.) Unbreakable and Signs are both excellent films, both earned positive reviews from critics. Both were also successful at the box office. M Night’s first three films earned $1.3 billion worldwide. Not too shabby. How many directors can boast about that feat? The man clearly has talent telling a story with a supernatural element to them. However, The Village, Lady in the Water, and The Happening were all trashed by critics. I thought The Village was okay, absolutely hated Lady in the Water, and thought The Happening was decent. At this point, it is safe to say that the latter half of M. Night’s career has definitely been a disappointment. But why is there all this hate? There were some excerpts from reviews of The Happening that said it was a sign of the end of his career. What a stupid ass thing to say. M. Night has showed promise in his quality films in that he has what it takes to pin the audience to their seats and move them with engrossing stories and nail-biting suspense. He has wonderful aesthetic, and even with his poor films, they at least have interesting premises. How many other relatively new writer/directors out there, within the last 10 years, have made a film up there with The Sixth Sense? Not many. Hell, every film of his has had pretty damn good trailers, too. So why is there all this hate? Is it because of the well-publicized and very ugly split with Disney? I sort of compare it to a rookie quarterback who, in his first season, takes his team to the Super Bowl, breaks all types of records, wins the MVP, and wins the Super Bowl. People would be going crazy for this kid and expectations would skyrocket. But over the course of the next few seasons, his stats start to dwindle, and what once were crazy excited fans, have now turned somewhat bitter and angry. Unlike football, however, M. Night can make quite a few movies over the next 20 years, and who is to say he can’t recreate that magic? His films are better than most suspense/thrillers and the tons of crap that plague the horror genre (Hostel(s), Halloween(s), stupid teen horror movies, etc.). As far as genuine suspense, M. Night is the most recent director who seems to have the potential to reach Hitchcock’s skill of terrorizing the audience. Sure, M. Night has many, many, many miles to go before he can sit at the same table with Hitchock, but he does seem to possess the talent to get him there. All of his films are original stories, and he isn’t afraid to take risks in his storytelling. Some have worked out for the better, and others for the worse. So stop drinking the hate-orade people! Tony Liccardello is a film critic living in Chicago. Read Tony Liccardello’s Rant on M. Night Shyamalan Hate. Got a problem? E-mail us at filmmonthly@gmail.com |