Carnage Movie Review

Critic's Rating: 4/5
Cast: Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz
Direction: Roman Polanski
Genre: Drama
Duration: 1 hour 19 minutes
Avg Readers Rating: 4½/5

Story: Two schoolboys fight and one of them emerges with two broken teeth. Their parents meet for reconciliation in a New York apartment. The meeting is stormy

Movie Review: Bullets don't fly in Carnage. Nobody gets stabbed or gunned down. The violence in director Roman Polankshi's film -- based on the play, God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza -- is of a different kind. Two sets of parents, meeting each other for the first time to thrash out a fight between their kids, end up savaging each other with words. Once the veneer of civility is stripped off under the strain of the unfortunate incident, the Longstreets (Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly) and the Cowans (Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz) hurl words like harpoons meant to pierce the heart. Soon the kids and the issue linked with them become irrelevant.

Frayed nerves, bloated egos and papered up cracks within their own relationships come to the fore. Gender alliances are formed and broken. At one point Michael (Reilly) and Allan (Waltz) face each other like two mafia dons about to shoot each other. Under strain, Nancy (Winslet) vomits over Penelope's (Foster) favorite art books. And it doesn't help that they are all sipping 18-year-old single malt at the same time.

For adults only, Carnage is gripping drawing room drama. The film entirely focuses on the conversation between the four adults and the action never moves out of the Longstreet apartment in New York. And it is a tribute to the quality of screenplay, co-written by Polanski and Reza, that you never feel the need for outdoors. There's dark humour too.

In the end, the movie becomes a scathing critique of civility and people. The Polish director seems to suggest that civility is a luxury few can afford under pressure. And, in fact, people are too eager to strip it off because it makes them feel more comfortable with their real selves.

In an illustrious career, Polanski has made a cache of unforgettable movies such as Knife in the Water, Chinatown, Rosemary's Baby and The Pianist. With polished performances by the entire cast -- Foster and Waltz marginally more persuasive than the other two -- Carnage is another Polanski special in its own way.