Written, directed by, and starring Sir Anthony Hopkins [Silence of the Lambs, Instinct], Slipstream is an utter piece of crap. In fact, it wasn't until I watched the special features that I had any understanding of what the movie was truly supposed to be about! Watching Slipstream has probably cost me a larger chunk of my life than the hour and a half it took to watch the film. If this is any indication of the eagerness I had to finish watching, it took me four days to watch because I could not handle watching more than a small chunk at a time.
It is time, after all, that Slipstream is trying to portray. The movie is essentially about a distressed screenplay writer (Hopkins) that dreams of his characters while slipping in and out of consciousness over a very faint moment in time. The style of the movie is unlike anything I've ever seen before, and there must be a reason for it. The entire movie (but especially the first hour or more) is nothing more than a sequence of scenes riddled with flash frames of subconscious, I gather. Remember the puke bucket reference above? I'm not joking in the least. If you are prone to motion sickness from rapid imagery, get your bucket ready. Heaven forbid anyone with a history of epilepsy try to watch Slipstream, because they will almost certainly be affected by the constant flashing of images and light.
It truly is hard to find a positive light at the end of this rubbish tunnel, but I'll try. I do have to admit that in the final moments of the movie, I began to understand a little of what was going on in my now-scrambled brain. (SPOILER ALERT) However, just when I thought I had a grasp (and confirmed what I had thought all along), a giant flip-flop happens and you actually do realize that the writer's dreams are slipping in and out of each other in his final moments of life. (END OF SPOILER) However, to truly understand what actually happened in the course of Slipstream, you'd probably have to watch it twice. I'll leave that up to you, because I won't put myself through this misery again.
The behind the scene featurette was actually 100 times more entertaining than the film itself. It seems that many of the actors, and in small regards, Anthony Hopkins himself, are making fun of the script and the film in general. My favorite was Michael Clarke Duncan's comments about reading, and re-reading, and re-reading the script until he finally spent a good length of time on the phone with Hopkins because he didn't have a clue what the film was about. There are traces in the film itself, in fact, that make fun of the writing, quality, and the fact that it seems thrown together. (It was shot in 31 days, after all.)
Okay, okay... I'm done. Hopefully this review wasn't as bad as the movie, but if you care to harass yourself with images of nothing (yet strangely of everything), then give Slipstream a try. But if you have any taste (and I do mean any taste) in movies, leave this artsy fartsy crap where it belongs, in the bottom of the toilet bowl.
