Praying with Anger

A typical representative of movies about a young punk from the city who returns to the country to find his roots, his humility, himself, blah blah blah. Except that here the countryside is India. Twenty-year-old Shyamalan self-financed a project in which he wanted to prove how capable he was of making a conventional film. As such it's terribly cautious, full of clichés, and lacks the kind of youthful, passionate ruthlessness you expect from the debuts of twenty-something directors. It's just terribly boring. (12/18/2022)

M. Night Shyamalan showed in his first film that he was all about telling stories that weren't empty, and that had something to say. Praying with Anger will likely have a lot of what M. Night Shyamalan himself contemplated about himself and his roots. It's not a great statement, but you can tell it's personal. (08/18/2017)