Parts Per Billion (2014) Directed by Brian Horiuchi

Here we yet again have one of those movies that involves multiple different plot lines, involving multiple different character, that are all intertwined with each other. The type of stuff that director Alejandro González Iñárritu popularized and used to be known for. Now, in my experience these type of movies can always go both ways. They are either absolutely brilliant and very involving to watch or they are absolutely terrible and highly annoying ones. This one unfortunately is the latter.

Oh man, where to even begin? First of all, its concept of having multiple different story lines, involving different characters, weaved into one, is heavily flawed. None of the different story lines and characters feel connected to each other in a strong, clever or very convincing way. Usually the only thing that brings some of these story lines together is whenever two characters happen to be standing in the same room or sit on the same park-bench together. It all feels weak, terribly uncreative and lazy as well to be honest. There is almost absolutely nothing that actually ties any of the story lines together, so it basically just feels like you are constantly watching a bunch of random and unrelated stories.

The movie keeps switching back and forth between all of the its different story lines but to make things even worse and more annoying, it isn't always doing this chronologically. The one moment the movie is set in the present time, while the other it's set somewhere in the near past, without it really ever adding anything to the story at all. The movie already feels like it's moving forward very slowly, so whenever it's featuring a flashback it feels like the movie is slowing down even more, which also does make this movie a bit tiresome to watch.

Also, what was exactly being the point of this movie? It's obvious to me that it's trying to be- and seems to think that it's a very thought-provoking movie but what are we supposed to take out of it? Guess it's trying to be a movie about life, love, war, industrialism and everything else in between of that but the last thing I need is Josh Hartnett trying to teach me something about life. Seriously, all of the movie its messages and points fail to come across or make much of an impact.

Maybe this is not just due to the story itself but also most definitely due to the way how it's being told. It's not just a poorly constructed movie but also a really poorly told one. It's hard to ever feel involved with anyone, since it's a movie that's dealing with an apocalyptic type of scenario, yet no one is ever panicking or too concerned and busy about trying to survive. They only seem to be concerned about their already shaky relationships. There is never a sense of danger and urgency, which of course ruins all tension and the chance for any potentially interesting story lines to develop into something good and engaging.

Another thing that makes this movie a terribly unrealistic one is all of its dialog. The dialog...no one talks like that in real life! It's more like stage-play type of dialog, or the type of stuff that you normally would read in an overly complicated and overlong novel written by some pretentious writer who thinks he/she knows all about life and people. All characters constantly talk about stuff that seems totally irrelevant, which indeed also is one of the reasons why the movie constantly feels like it's going absolutely nowhere with the story.

Please don't be fooled or tricked by the movie its impressive looking cast-list. Guess this is just the type of movie that some actors love to do at times, since it's a very character driven movie, with lots of dialog and different emotions. Unfortunately the dialog, nor any of its different emotions are much good though. Not even the fine actors of this movie can prevent it from turning into a pointless, annoying and tiresome one to watch, without any true redeeming qualities in it.

Really not worth watching.

4/10

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