Funny Games

aka Funny Games U. S.

(France/Germany/Italy/Great Britain/USA/Austria, 2007, 111 minutes)

A well-off family is terrorised in their own vacation home by two young men whose courtly manners belie their sadism. Remake of the 1997 cerebral shocker/critique of violence (delete as applicable) by the original director that switches the location (now Long Island) but nothing more; while the content remains unchanged and acting and handling remain of a high standard, this seems to be more of a purely intellectual, and rather superfluous, exercise that adds nothing to the original film.

A Warner Independent Pictures release. Celluloid Dreams and Warner Independent Pictures present a Halcyon Pictures/Tartan Films/Celluloid Dreams/X-Filme International/Lucky Red production, in association with Belladonna and Kinematograf. Starring Naomi Watts, Tim Roth, Michael Pitt, Brady Corbet, Devon Gearhart. Directed and written by Michael Haneke; produced by Hengameh Panahi, Christian Baute, Andro Steinborn, Chris Coen and Hamish McAlpine; director of photography (Technicolor prints), Darius Khondji; production designer, Kevin Thompson; costume designer, David Robinson; film editor, Monika Willi.