WORDS HAVE MEANING: Victor Morton’s review of “Police, Adjective” gets the philosophical and theological heft of the movie. But I honestly wasn’t perturbed by the “Long Attention-Span Theater” nature of the first 90% of scenes–partly because Morton’s review had made me expect a climax, partly bc the tension between everyday tedium and extraordinary suspense is part of the point of the movie, and partly bc the main actor is just so great. Morton says there’s too much film where he just slurps soup; I remember thinking that I could watch this specific hangdog working-class antihero slurp soup for hours without getting tired.

For me, the basic experience of the movie was: DEADENINGLY RAW HUMAN EXPERIENCE which is somehow still compelling to watch… do that for a really long time, and often it’s funny but every time it’s funny it’s also cruel. The punctuation of laughter is used really well. …and then suddenly HOLY CRAP DISTILLED SCENE OF POWER AND HUMILIATION AND (a)THEOLOGY.

So put up with any boredom in the first part–you really need it–because this Jack-in-the-Box coil really is winding up to something shocking and cruel and theologically grisly.

It’s playing at the E Street Cinema.