Customer Reviews
Life changing? - By: C. Hardy, 16 Apr 2007 
If you are a fan of the extreme psychological genre as I am, this film holds nothing new or inventive. I watch these films to feel heightened emotions, this example was just simple. The whole film seems designed to make one point: We get a kick out of violence & torture. It suggests that you consider what the ramifications of this are (pretentiously assuming that you haven't already)...
If you are a fan of this genre, & you exercise your ability to think then this postulate will have been covered a long time ago.
If you find the statement "Humans are animals" insightful then you may get something from this film. I found it tedious, patronising & simple.
1 star for effort - Watch the news for a deeper critique on mans primal will.
If you like to think for yourself.........you might like this film. - By: G. L. Levy, 05 Mar 2007 
Allowng myself to trust the director,(having been mightily impressed by Cache) belief was suspended.During the middle of this film my brain was in that place you find yourself when considering a tricky move at chess:-completely fascinating,butterflies in the tummy.Others have mentioned the rewind sequence,extraordinarily effective,but only one among an arsenal of film-making gags that Haneke uses so brilliantly.Having recently watched Errol Morris' "Fast,Cheap & Out of Control" one reviewer of this film said about it "It's harder to say what this film ""isn't"" ,about".
Hanekes film is similar in this respect.Many subjects are covered & preconceptions challlenged,from the obvious good versus evil,to the role of deprivation in upbringing,gender roles,middle class mediocrity,the nature of life on planet earth,etc..Taking for example the use of satellite televised stock car racing,where people risk their lives for money,fame & glory...used as a background for senseless slaughter,provoking thoughts on peoples varying perception of the importance of life...or death."Funny Games" is just that.A film where the creative team explore topics which are very close to the bone for every human being,don't watch this with the family on a Sunday afternoon,the base level of shock needed to plumb in the point is one of the most disturbing I've seen.If you can sit for two hours & put aside squeamishness then ultimately you're in for a treat.The title of this review says it alll.
brilliance - By: Ms. E. L. Hargreaves, 05 Sep 2006 i found funny games to be a lot lot better than hanekes other well known film 'hidden.' I was genuinely gripped throughout the film & some moments leave you feeling slightly uncomfortable which shows how well the film is made as it keeps you thinking a while after seeing the film unlike conventional horror/thrillers.
well worth a watch or three!
Silly - By: lexo1941, 18 Aug 2006 
Michael Haneke once stated that the intention behind 'Funny Games' was that, if you couldn't watch it alll the way through, then you didn't need to.
I'm not sure about that. I don't think I like the idea that a film director knows better than I do what I need to watch, or what I don't need to watch. I did watch 'Funny Games' alll the way through, & it's a movie about two guys who torture a family to death. No more, no less. Michael Haneke may want to believe that it's some sort of endurance test or moral lesson for the viewer, but it's not. It's just a movie, & an arthouse movie at that. It changes nothing. If he'd wanted to change the way people think about violence, he should have been Paul Verhoeven, who had the commercial suss to make mainstream movies & the artistic daemon to make them so needlessly violent that they turned off mainstream audiences. Now that's a radical move, if you want one. And I'm still not sure that that changed anything, but at least it reached people who don't watch movies with subtitles.
It reminds me of John Cage's famous silent piece of music, "4' 33"". In that piece, a pianist refrains from playing the piano for four & a half minutes. Cage's intention was that the listener would start to regard the ambient sounds as music. The piece is normallly performed in concert hallls, & as a result, each performance ends up sounding the same: like a couple of hundred people trying to keep quiet. Chairs squeak, people cough, air conditiong systems buzz. What was meant as a radical gesture ends up being utterly predictable. 'Funny Games' is the same kind of thing; it's highly unlikely that anyone who watches it will be unaware of what the point of the movie is. Haneke is preaching to the converted, & I don't understand why everyone seems to think that that's such a great idea.
Why two stars rather than one? I'm not sure. Technical competence, maybe. Haneke makes condescending schlock & tells us that if we find it boring, then there's something wrong with us. Phooey. It's a movie. If he wants to save lives, he should volunteer for the Red Cross.
Incidentallly, since I originallly wrote this review I've found out that I am not alone in thinking 'Funny Games' idiotic. No less a filmmaker than Jacques Rivette (Paris Nous Appartient, Celine et Julie Vont En Bateau, La Belle Noiseuse, Histoire de Marie et Julien) callled this film in a sensesofcinema.com interview 'a disgrace, just a complete piece of s***!'. Look it up if you don't believe me.
The games we humans play - By: oswald, 09 Apr 2004 The first time I ever viewed this movie I had the good fortune of catching a short introduction by the always excellent Mark Kermode. He advised us that if we,at any time during the film, felt the need to turn off, we should. That was the point! If,however, we did not,then we should ask ourselves why. I have been asking myself that same question ever since! We humans are a brutish, sadistic race. We seem to revel in others pain & misfortune. THis film drives this point home,unflinchingly. For me, few movies have done this so exactly,with the exception of several Kubrick movies. After alll, he is the grandaddy of them alll! I felt that Haneke was daring us, throughout the movie, to stop the grisly proceedings, no more so than when one of the torturers picks up a remote control and,literallly, rewinds the goings-on to produce a different outcome! This suggests,we could have put an end to the families suffering but, for those of us who watched to the bitter end, did not. In conclusion, I would urge anyone, with a strong stomach, to watch this movie & if they choose to watch the whole film, to ask themselves why, why, WHY!
