Camden New Journal - Movies: He was a quite man

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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with WILLIAM HALL
Published: 6 December 2007

Christian Slater as Bob

From a whisper to a scream

HE WAS A QUITE MAN
Directed by Frank Cappello
Certificate 15

IF you want a quirky but strangely fascinating film, look no further than this oddity about a downtrodden office worker named Bob (the new A-list star Christian Slater) who has had enough of life and dreams of going out not with a whimper but a massive bang.
Trapped in his dull cubicle in a corporate conglomerate, mild and bespectacled, he is a pen-pusher whose biggest daily challenge is opening his briefcase for his lunchtime sandwiches.
But in his drawer, tucked away between the paperclips and staples, is a loaded revolver – the source of his dreams to make the world remember him when he goes on the rampage and starts pulling the trigger…
Bob is a grenade with the pin pulled half out, which builds the tension behind director Frank Cappello’s essay into the mind of a loser who wants to make his mark on the world – the only way open to him.
But when the screen is suddenly filled with deafening gunshots, it isn’t his finger on the trigger, but the man in the next cubicle – another no-hoper who finally cracks and starts spraying the office with bullets.
Instinctively Bob pulls out his own gun and pumps five shots into his colleague’s body. In an instant, he goes from zero to hero, acclaimed by his buddies and an overnight TV star across the nation.
It isn’t enough. The effect is dramatically reversed, and he becomes even more withdrawn as the outside world crowds in on him. And remember… there’s one bullet left in his gun.
Here is a superbly acted drama, but in the end just too way-out for my tastes.

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