Aubrey Morris, Chris Coppola, D.W. Moffett

Flixster Users

56% liked it

614 ratings

Unrated, 1 hr. 34 min.

Directed by: Jared Drake

Release Date: June 12, 2008

Invite friends to see

DVD Release Date: July 21, 2009

Get It:

Stats: 153 reviews

Get movie widget Recommend it Add to Favorites

Your Rating



clear rating

Flixster Reviews (153)


  • September 14, 2008
    [28th Atlantic Film Festival]

    Jared (director) and Brandon (writer) Drake have crafted together a film with a very simple moral, but have managed to create one of the most fascinating cultures I have ever witnessed in a film. I was blown away; which is fitting, since the film r...( read more)evolves around George Washington Winsterhammerman (descendant of the original G.W.), who notices that everybody around him has started to explode.

    The exploding epidemic takes this fantasy world by storm. The keys to avoiding it are being productive, and happy. One way to be happy is to eat butter. And don't forget fried chicken. Fried Chicken is delicious, after all. Unfortunately, George soon succumbs to the first symptom of explosions - dreams.

    This has quickly become my most quoted film, which is unfortunate since it seems only 7 people on flixster have currently seen it. Quirky, imaginative, with a fantastic message and an even better ending. At any point where you fear you're losing track of the film, a character always seems to pop up and soliloquize their inner turmoil at just the right moment. Very highly recommended, and I sincerely hope this will be the launchpad for the Drake brothers to become bigger players in the film world.
  • November 14, 2009
    Recommended by WitchfulThinking.
  • November 13, 2009


    V...( read more)isoneers

    WRITTEN BY: Brandon Drake

    DIRECTED BY: Jared Drake

    FEATURING: Zach Galifianakis, Judy Greer, Mía Maestro, Missi Pyle and Chris Coppola

    PLOT: Repressed corporate employees the world over are literally bursting apart from frustration. Innocuous worker George Winsterhammerman must deal with his huge corporate employer's misguided and demeaning attempts to remedy the malady. But could the source of the problem be the perpetual brain-numbing proselytizing of the very corporations themselves?

    Visioneers is an unconventional metaphor about the illogic of artificial business and social constructs.

    COMMENTS: Set in the not so distant future, Visioneers a black comedy about the absurdity of corporate culture and of futile optimism in general as well as the ridiculous nature of self help schemes. George Washington Winsterhammerman works for the fictitious Jeffers Corporation, a giant corporate bureaucracy. His mid-level workaday job is mundane and unfulfilling. The PA system bombards him hourly with optimistic corporate pep talk encouraging productivity.

    Everything is business as usual until George and his personal office staff are made aware that around the world, people are spontaneously exploding -literally. The root of the problem stems from lives of quiet desperation and repression. It seems that everywhere, people are being forced to pay lip service to falsely optimistic corporate culture and to suppress human emotion and rational thought.

    The constant denial of emotions, the enforced phony business visages, and the frustration of coping with senseless bureaucracies takes its toll. The pent up stress and officially-enforced anal-retentiveness is causing employees everywhere to literally burst apart into an spray of atomized blood and body parts as surely as if a fuse had been lit to a colonically embedded stick of dynamite. The Jeffers Corporation frantically imposes an endless series of misguided remedies. Jeffers accompanies them with futile reassurances and encouragement not to explode.

    Meanwhile, George has his own worries to deal with. He and his wife are unhappy, he struggles with impotence, his ex convict, whackjob brother founds a freedom-of-expression movement in George's backyard, and George worries that he too will explode under all of the confusion and pressure. His employer and physician instruct him to relieve stress via a cascade of absurd quack remedies and bizarre devices, such as a ?happiness hat? that comes equipped with a mobile of the solar system. Try as he might, George cannot make any of these remedies reduce his anxiety. Finally George has to confront the question of whether or not a lifestyle of mindless productivity, absurd Orwellian bureaucracy, and smiley-faced denial actually provides a positive, substantially meaningful conduit to reality and the human condition.

    In the way it addresses the effect of irrational propaganda on the human psyche, Visioneers is reminiscent of Eugene Ionesco's "Rhinoceros," with human explosions stemming from modern workplace dogma replacing rhino metamorphosis from political indoctrination.

    Visioneers furnishes an effective metaphor for the artificial constructs of the modern world. The film is very funny until it misses its chance to top its premise near the end, when it changes into a personal triumph of self-actualization for the protagonist. With great irony,Visioneers becomes the very thing that it condemns and satirizes; a sort of inspirational icon, akin to the posters on your bosses? walls with the motivational messages printed at the bottom.

    WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

    "gently absurdist, quirky satire wears its influences on its dystopian sleeve, but an amiable cast and some surprising poignancy add up to Orwell that ends well." -Michael Rechtshaffen, The Hollywood Reporter (contemporaneous)

    A tip of the hat to my editor, Greg S. at 366WeirdMovies.com for helping me to improve this review.
  • November 9, 2009
    I don't know how I feel about this one, not a bad movie at all, but perhaps a bit too realistic to be funny. i certainly recommend seeing it.
  • October 24, 2009
    Trite in narrative, but extremely thoughtful in humor and the idea of happiness in American culture.
  • October 18, 2009
    zach galifianakis is great. really cool vision by director/writer duo but too many slow parts hunker down the movie.
  • October 15, 2009
    Many a hysterical moment, but unfortunately accompanied by a few too many overly-complicating subplots.
  • August 29, 2009
    Interesting flick. Good acting.
  • August 23, 2009
    It's always nice seeing a spastic Zach Galifianakis.
  • August 18, 2009
    Almsot turned this off 30 mins into it, so glad i didn't as it was one of the most unique and interesting takes on a future ruled by corporations & government propaganda i've seen. It's very strange at first, a bit like the film, Brazil. It has an edgey feel right the way throu...( read more)gh so you're never quite sure what's going to happen which is good. An epidemic occurs where people who are stressed or sad explode, it's pretty funny actually. The Jeffers corporation now run everything and plan to install microchips into the sufferers to turn them into happy, mindless zombies. It's pretty dark so if your like your satire and you like to think a lot then this maybe for you. The ending was a little weak compared to the rest of the film but it was still very engaging nethertheless.

Critic Reviews


Comments


This board looks lonely. Be the first to talk about "Visioneers" !

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

More Like This


Click a thumb to vote on that suggestion, or add your own suggestions.

  • Idiocracy
    Idiocracy (0%)
  • Office Space
    Office Space (0%)
  • Brazil
    Brazil (0%)

Facts


No facts approved yet. Be the first

Visioneers : Watch Free on TV


Movie Quizzes


No quizzes for Visioneers. Want to create one?

Recent News


No recent headlines. Got one?

Most Popular Skin


No skins yet. Interested in creating one?