Praying with Anger

A typical representative of movies about a young punk from the city who returns to the country to find his roots, his humility, himself, blah blah blah. Except that here the countryside is India. Twenty-year-old Shyamalan self-financed a project in which he wanted to prove how capable he was of making a conventional film. As such it's terribly cautious, full of clichés, and lacks the kind of youthful, passionate ruthlessness you expect from the debuts of twenty-something directors. It's just terribly boring. (2022.12.18)

M. Night Shyamalan showed in his first film that he was all about telling stories that weren't empty, and that had something to say. Praying with Anger will likely have a lot of what M. Night Shyamalan himself contemplated about himself and his roots. It's not a great statement, but you can tell it's personal. (2017.08.18)