If you took an extended rant by Andy Rooney on the evils of car alarms, mixed it with a late night, dorm room bull session by a bunch of college kids who just had their first philosophy class and blended that with a man's mid-life crisis…you'd end up with something like this film. Except Noise is even worse than you'd imagine that combination could be.This sputtering, ostentatious, anti-social and smug goulash of a movie essentially presents the equivalent of the Unabomber as not just a hero, but a moral exemplar. Chris Owen (Tim Robbins) hates noise. That makes living in New York City, one of the noisiest metropolises on Earth, a bit problematic. But that's where David lives with his wife Helen (Bridget Moynahan) and his daughter Chris (Gabrielle Brennan). David doesn't just hate noise. He rages against it as an assault on his personal dignity. He's so consumed with fury that he starts attacking cars whose alarms have gone off without reason and continue blaring without stop. Even after he gets thrown in jail for his vandalism, David still won't stop. He loses his job, but he won't stop. His wife takes his daughter and leaves him. He still won't stop. David becomes an urban vigilante known as "The Rectifier", disabling car alarms all over New York. That draws the absurdly irrational hatred of the city's mayor (William Hurt) and the attention of a young European woman named Ekaterina Filippovna (Margarita Levieva). She's captivated by David's purpose and certainty and tries to direct him away from petty theft to political progress. The mayor tries to stop them and that suddenly morphs the film into a courtroom drama.Just in case I haven't made it perfectly clear yet…Noise is horrible. It is a wildly inconsistent and alienating movie that splices political agitprop, philosophical wankery, juvenile power fantasies and middle aged desperation into one long stream of consciousness that batters against you like waves upon the rocks. This is the sort of movie that thinks a having a few lines of dialog reference Hegel makes it intellectual. It thinks it has to specifically point out the obvious contradiction in its main character because the audience is too stupid to see it themselves. It fantasizes that angry social misfits are exactly the sort of man with whom women want to have a threesome. And it glories in an unreflective, Holden Caulfieldesque sense of superiority over the rest of the world.Tim Robbins shuffles through Noise like a severe manic-depressive whose medication occasionally wears off. William Hurt gives a bizarre performance as a 19th century anarchist's idea of what a politician is like. Bridget Moynahan might as well be a potted plant. Margarita Levieva plays a character so convenient and ephemeral that it would have made more sense for Ekaterina to be a schizophrenic hallucination that only David could see.Noise makes it seem like writer/director Henry Bean suffers from multiple personalities and each took a turn in crafting a different part of this film. Unfortunately, all of his personalities are terminally boring and none of them know what the others are doing. Fantasy and realism, drama and melodrama, comedy and tedium rattle against each other. There's even a point where the movie acknowledges that it's fiction, presenting itself like edgy propaganda meant to provoke a response from the audience. The only response you'll want to make is to throw something at the screen.I can't understand how anyone who read this script gave Bean the money to make this film. I can't imagine how anyone who watches Noise would ever give him any money to ever make another movie. I can only hope he can find himself some other employment so we're not subjected to any more of his work.

Noise is one of those movies we've wanted to watch for quite some time but never got a chance. It surfaced on the Xbox video marketplace, and so we thought we'd give it a rent. But while the issue of noise harassment is one that hits close to home for many, the same can't be so easily said of the movie bearing the name.The reason for that is double standardization, and Henry Bean's Noise sins greatly in applying hypocrisy as one of its primary assets. Having expressed this sentiment, Noise is nonetheless a smart, entertaining movie doing more to promote understanding of the harm done by noise than most authorities ever could, and for that we heartily recommend it. It's also got Tim Robbins in the main role, and he's as awesome as ever.In this one he plays David Owen, a successful professional and family man who relocates to Upper West Side Manhattan from suburban environs. Initially, the NYC apartment experience works well for Owen, his wife (Bridget Moynahan) and daughter (Gabrielle Brennan). Over time, though, he begins to get increasingly irritated with car alarms going off unattended, to the point of literally ruining his life. Precipitated by this trauma, and by the indifference to his plight offered by those around him, a transformation occurs, one in which docile David Owen becomes a rampaging anti-noise vigilante with no qualms over taking matters into his own hands.But this is where Bean and his movie verge into hypocrisy-land. While the main character crusades against noise makers, he only seems to care about inadvertent machine-generated noise like alarms and backup beepers. Yet, his own wife is shown to be a chamber musician who regularly holds recitals in their living room. Are we certain the neighbors approve? Therefore, the overt conduct of this film is too limited in scope to a specific kind of noise, while perhaps tacitly endorsing a much more malicious form causing misery to millions.Later the story does acknowledge the individual nature of suffering from noise – the protagonist encounters those who complain about manhole covers, drum playing neighbors, boomboxes and other problems. He also hooks up with one of the noise makers, done by lovely Margarita Levieva, who becomes an unlikely ally in struggle to get city authorities to recognize the plight of the noise-terrorized citizenry. This leads to a borderline-racist parody of Mayor Bloomberg done by an overly smug William Hurt.In showcasing a progressive struggle, the movie does a lot of good – there's a very efficient portrayal of the uncaring legal system's impotence in enforcing noise regulations, something that needs to be shown if change is ever to materialize. Owen ends up achieving a modest victory, and the movie concludes on a positive, satisfying note.Noise goes by quickly and says quite a bit for its modest timespan. Tim Robbins, as usual, does a wonderful job as a person suffering from torture at the hands of stupid, monolithic factors he can't control in a world that no longer bothers with traditional civilities. Anyone who's ever been in that situation will see themselves in Robbins' character right away.The narrow scope Noise maintains most of the time, the hypocrisy and the mere token mention of the broader issue of noise, however, take away from the sense of achievement here. As it stands, the film comes too close to discussing a mere pet peeve rather than a far reaching social sickness, but even so, this is one movie you should watch.

Noise is about a man suffering a mid-life crisis, but this crisis doesn't play itself out as an affair or the purchase of a sports car or boat. Instead, David, our protagonist, exhibits his crisis in the form of an all-out attack upon noise.David and his wife, Helen are dyed-in-the-wool New Yorkers. She is a musician and he is a successful businessman. They love the city and would never consider leaving, but David is becoming increasingly aware of the noises around him. Sounds that one comes to accept as natural in city life have started to grate upon his nerves and his sense of right and wrong. The utmost villain in David's life is the car alarm.In New York City, there is an ordinance against car alarms sounding for longer than a couple of minutes, but the law is basically ignored by the police causing the public to be victims of the noise. David decides that he will no longer play the role of victim and goes through his neighborhood with a baseball bat smashing any car alarming. He is eventually arrested and goes before a judge who does not approve but is forgiving. David is warned that if he continues his crusade, he will be jailed.Just as it is difficult for a man approaching his later years to give up his beautiful lover or his shiny sports car, David cannot give up his obsession with noise. His campaign is eventually noticed by the press and the mysterious avenger soon becomes a champion of the people much to the chagrin of the unsympathetic mayor of New York. David's mania eventually leads to misfortune.Tim Robbins stars as David, and he is perfect for the part combining just the right amount of drama and humor to make you believe that his character is a real person. Movie fans are very lucky that Robbins and his partner, Susan Sarandon takes parts in little films such as this for their considerable acting talents certainly all to the value of films.The uptight mayor is beautifully played by William Hurt in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek performance that delights.It is interesting to note that Noise is fairly autobiographical of writer/director, Henry Bean's life. He is, indeed, a New Yorker who went on a smashing spree against car alarms and was eventually jailed.Noise is an enjoyable dark comedy with a valid message. The message is serious but the wit of the piece makes its delivery a very entertaining hour and a half.

Hey, this is a great film to watch on a long haul flight. The existential drama is more play than film, more essay than story, but it has its attractions. The project maybe anarchic but in the end normality is restored, the individual is better adjusted and the danger of action has been accommodated within the everyday world. It could be a mature taste is needed, it could be that the subtle attractions of an anti-hero who is struggling with Hegel, but, somewhere in this cultural density, there are views of sexuality that shift attention from the repressed to the expressed. The same goes for middle age rage. And anyway, Robbins is at his best as a Camus styled man of his time.