Critic Reviews
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Kerry Lengel, Arizona Republic
As much as it tries to be a smart, postmodern indie film, dot the i is pure Hollywood fluff.
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John Monaghan, Detroit Free Press
Parkhill tries to keep new blood pulsing through the film, but the movie stalls by its third act, where he plays a trick that seems more desperate than fresh.
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Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle
Take a long, hard look at Parkhill's film, and you'll find too many i's undotted.
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Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution
While stylishly done, Parkhill's script isn't nearly as clever as he thinks it is, and the sucker punch near the end lacks, well, punch.
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Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune
Inflicts great pain on the audience by wringing its plot into a bruised and pulpy mass.
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Robert Denerstein, Denver Rocky Mountain News
Dot the I doesn't suffer from a lack of skill. Rather it becomes a lesson in the pitfalls of moviemaking that runs on cleverness and too little else.
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David Noh, Film Journal International
You watch the screen in disbelief and amazement that any aspiring auteur could so willfully undermine his own project this way.
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David Nusair, Reel Film Reviews
...benefits greatly from the inclusion of a thoroughly unpredictable third-act twist...
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James O'Ehley, SA Movie & DVD Magazine
Dot the I is okay-ish until it drops one of those Sixth Sense-style plot twists which negates everything that has gone before it into audiences' laps . . .
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Jeff Vice, Deseret News, Salt Lake City
The term 'terrible' not only describes what happens to the characters, it also describes the brain-numbing sensation of having to sit through this movie.
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Sean Means, Salt Lake Tribune
The movie stops being about [its characters] - and starts being about the ways writer-director Matthew Parkhill can screw with your head.
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Marjorie Baumgarten, Austin Chronicle
So in love with its own inventions and convolutions that it ignores all plausibility and audience acceptance.
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Michele Kenner, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
But despite its trickery, dot the i lacks emotional resonance that would elevate it above the banal.
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Anton Bitel, Movie Gazette
Latin spirit with a twist - definitely a heady mix, but far too cold to be truly refreshing.
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Rob Thomas, Capital Times (Madison, WI)
"Dot the I" wants to join the ranks of "Memento" and "The Usual Suspects," films that reward multiple viewings, but it's so ridiculous that it doesn't sustain a first.
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Pete Vonder Haar, Film Threat
Once the effect of the second act's gimmick wears off, you find yourself growing more and more annoyed at the improbability of the entire setup.
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Jack Garner, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
A curious mélange that works more often than not.
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M.E. Russell, Oregonian
A weird, pretty film with a dumb script, a skilled cast and a good twist, plus one hot sex scene and one brilliant scene-chew by D'Arcy.
Read all 18 critic reviews
Featured Audience Ratings
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Starts off predictably, then gets interesting towards the end but only slightly interesting. Worth the worth for Gael Garcia Bernal..but that's about it.
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In general, to avoid "spoiler reviews," I try to spend most of my time talking specifically about act one and talk in generalities about acts two and three. Act one of <i>Dot the I</i> sucks. We get relatively uninteresting characters, and it is obvious that… More
In general, to avoid "spoiler reviews," I try to spend most of my time talking specifically about act one and talk in generalities about acts two and three. Act one of <i>Dot the I</i> sucks. We get relatively uninteresting characters, and it is obvious that the film is trying to set up a thriller plot-line, but we're never given any real clues to build the suspense.
Acts two and three rock! The thriller plot-line manifests and turns this film into a brutal version of <i>The Shape of Things</i>. I especially liked the satire of the independent film industry, and that's about all I can say without spoiling the prestige.
Verbeke is a beautiful, doe-eyed innocent with a flash of the bad girl here and there; she makes for an alluring screen presence, but I don't see much depth in her performance. D'Arcy is fantastic in acts two and three, but he's as boring as the film in act one. In the few Bernal films I've seen, he does a Mexican imitation of Jim Carrey and Zach Braff, but he is able to keep that annoying side of his acting under control for most of <i>Dot the I</i>.
Overall, if it were possible to skip the first forty-five minutes and still understand the film, I'd suggest it.
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This is a big champagne budget movie done on a beer budget. Seeing how the story is told with what appears to be several beginners at the helm made it even more fun and bordered on artistic for me! It was an enjoyable movie to pass some time watching.
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I liked this movie a lot. I think that I might not have liked it as much if I had had an idea about what to expect. I feel that this has the potential to be one of those movies that could be "mismarketed" and then I would end up hating it (like The Village or Blow Dry). But… More
I liked this movie a lot. I think that I might not have liked it as much if I had had an idea about what to expect. I feel that this has the potential to be one of those movies that could be "mismarketed" and then I would end up hating it (like The Village or Blow Dry). But I really had no idea what it was going to be like and I ended up really enjoying it. It was a little slow at the beginning but then it got real interesting.
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Highly Recommendation! Part of the beauty of this erotically romantic-drama (bit thriller) is we're never certain where to place our loyalties. We want to feel for sexy Spanish flamenco dancer, now bride-to-be, who looks for security and hopes to heal a lifetime of hurt by… More
Highly Recommendation! Part of the beauty of this erotically romantic-drama (bit thriller) is we're never certain where to place our loyalties. We want to feel for sexy Spanish flamenco dancer, now bride-to-be, who looks for security and hopes to heal a lifetime of hurt by marrying loser and rich Englishman. Then at her bachelorette party, she meets and kisses an unemployed Brazilian actor who ignites a passion within her. What begins as a traditional romantic triangle spirals madly out of control, challenging the participants and thus the audience with its many plot twists and devices. Spanish actress Natalia Verbeke is fantastic and sexy I ever saw.
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[font=Century Gothic]"Dot the I" begins as Spanish emigre Carmen(Natalie Verbeke) accepts wealthy Barnaby's(James D'Arcy) proposal of marriage even though they have only known each other for five and a half months.(It's a little hard to pin down Carmen's… More
[font=Century Gothic]"Dot the I" begins as Spanish emigre Carmen(Natalie Verbeke) accepts wealthy Barnaby's(James D'Arcy) proposal of marriage even though they have only known each other for five and a half months.(It's a little hard to pin down Carmen's occupation since she has had 34 - no make that 35 - jobs in the past six months. Lousy jobs combined with a bad temper and a devastating right hook will have that effect...) Due to a tradition where the engaged woman is to have one last kiss with another man before marriage, at a hen night celebration(somebody please explain those outfits), Carmen is prodded by her friends to kiss a total stranger in the restaurant. And so she does with unemployed actor Kit(Gael Garcia Bernal) but it is a much more passionate one than either expected...[/font]
[font=Century Gothic][/font]
[font=Century Gothic]"Dot the I" is a flat, lifeless movie that starts out being a melodrama about a love triangle but that is washed away by a derivative revelation which does not make much sense even with the occasional clues. Plus, the finale is set up purely to pander to the audience. A sense of class consciousness and Gael Garcia Bernal's ample charisma do not make it a total waste but could have been better with some thought.[/font]
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Good movie, but it's no 'Memento'.
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An intriguing movie.
The story plot is hypnotic and endearing, but yet bizarre. Fascinating tale of human interaction.
Love it.
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Easily worst film I saw at a local film festival a year back, this piece of work is just a mess from beginning to end. The central love story doesn't work (Gael Garcia Bernal is a good actor, but does nothing special here, and Natalia Verbenke turns in a decidedly average… More
Easily worst film I saw at a local film festival a year back, this piece of work is just a mess from beginning to end. The central love story doesn't work (Gael Garcia Bernal is a good actor, but does nothing special here, and Natalia Verbenke turns in a decidedly average performance at best) which dooms the film, because everything that happens is necessarily based on the premise that the audience is emotionally involved with these two. Thus, twists and turns come, each more ludicrous than the previous one, and I never so much as gave a shit.
This is a film that wants to have its cake and eat it too: it wants to cater to the romantic comedy crowd, the thriller crowd with its twists and the "discerning upper echelon" with its "social relevance" but it fails on all three levels.
The film angered me, mostly because ammong such great international movies (this is the same festival where I discovered "Las Horas del Día") this sole english-language representative played it safe while pretending it was going for broke.
Not smart, not fun and not worth watching save for a very good performance from James D'Arcy, who nails every nuance of his character wickedly.
Read all 11 featured audience ratings
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