Noise (2007 film)
Encyclopedia
Noise is a comedy
drama film
written and directed by Henry Bean
. It stars Tim Robbins
and Bridget Moynahan
. Robbins plays a successful lawyer in Manhattan
named David Owen who is bothered by all the noise in the city, and who resorts to vandalism
to put a stop to it, adopting the identity of "The Rectifier." His acts of vandalism provoke the mayor of the city, played by William Hurt
.
The film premiered October 22, 2007 at the Rome Film Festival. It was later shown at the AFI Film Festival on November 6, 2007. It opened in limited release
in the United States
on May 9, 2008.
While living on his own, Owen continues to destroy alarms, and progressively damages cars based on the number of violations. During this, he meets and begins a relationship with Ekaterina, a Russian student. After confronting him with the fact that he is "The Rectifier" a vigilante personality, complete with monikered stickers, that Owen has adopted. After falling in with him, Ekaterina convinces Owen to start a ballot initiative. While initially slow, the measure garners explosive popularity. Despite this, it is shut down by the Mayor Schneer, who disdains the Rectifier and believes supporting the measure would encourage vigilantism.
After being shutdown through loophole that prevents the ballot measure from appearing, Owen outfits a car with numerous alamrs and much louder horns. He then parks in front of city hall and sets off his alarms, citing the various laws that so frustrated Owen initially when city hall security demand he turn them off. After enraging a nearby tenant, Judge Kornreich, his vehicle is attacked and the judge is mistakenly arrested as The Rectifier. Kornreich sues Owen for pain and suffering damages, and Owen goes to court. During his cross-examination of Kornreich, Owen intentionally alludes that his actions could be considered assault and battery, establishing a legal precedent. Owen is found guilty, though Kornreich obviously intends to be lenient on him. Having won a irrevocably legal victory, Owen reunites with his wife. Walking out of the courthouse, an activist approaches Owen about blowing up a Billboard TV that has been causing accidents and is a eyesore of the cityscape. A dual ending is provided, one in which Owen flees with the activist, and one where he politely declines to accompany her and gets into a cab with his wife.
has called the film partly autobiographical. Stephen Holden wrote that the film "is the second part of a projected "fanatic trilogy" that began with The Believer."
film critic Stephen Holden
called Noise "a one-trick film that rapidly wears out its welcome." Holden said the film "is shallow and loud" and "lurches unsteadily between drama and comedy." Holden wrote "Its performances are discordant" and said "you have to wonder to what degree Mr. Robbins, an actor famous for his political activism, is here simply because he shares Mr. Bean's outrage."
David Denby
of The New Yorker
wrote that the film "is certainly odd, but the movie is alive with the creative madness of New York
." Denby said "Surely a more glamorous actor would have given Noise a lighter, more satirical spin, but Robbins makes David a lost, unhappy man who needs to save himself, and that's the right way to go—it turns a one-note story into a universal fable." Denby praised the performance of Margarita Levieva
as Ekatrina. Denby wrote "What saves Noise—and makes it almost continuously entertaining—is Bean's sense of the city as a gathering place of clever, chattering people."
in the United States
on May 9, 2008 and grossed $3,697 in 2 theaters its opening weekend.
Comedy film
Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...
drama film
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
written and directed by Henry Bean
Henry Bean
Henry Bean is an American screenwriter, film director, producer, novelist, and actor.Most famous as a screenwriter, Bean wrote the screenplays for Internal Affairs, Deep Cover, Venus Rising, The Believer , Basic Instinct 2 and Noise.Bean...
. It stars Tim Robbins
Tim Robbins
Timothy Francis "Tim" Robbins is an American actor, screenwriter, director, producer, activist and musician. He is the former longtime partner of actress Susan Sarandon...
and Bridget Moynahan
Bridget Moynahan
Kathryn Bridget Moynahan , best known as Bridget Moynahan, is an American model and actress. After graduating from Longmeadow High School in 1989, Moynahan pursued a career in modeling. She was signed by a modeling agency, which led her to appear in department store catalogs and the covers of...
. Robbins plays a successful lawyer in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
named David Owen who is bothered by all the noise in the city, and who resorts to vandalism
Vandalism
Vandalism is the behaviour attributed originally to the Vandals, by the Romans, in respect of culture: ruthless destruction or spoiling of anything beautiful or venerable...
to put a stop to it, adopting the identity of "The Rectifier." His acts of vandalism provoke the mayor of the city, played by William Hurt
William Hurt
William McGill Hurt is an American stage and film actor. He received his acting training at the Juilliard School, and began acting on stage in the 1970s. Hurt made his film debut as a troubled scientist in the science-fiction feature Altered States , for which he received a Golden Globe nomination...
.
The film premiered October 22, 2007 at the Rome Film Festival. It was later shown at the AFI Film Festival on November 6, 2007. It opened in limited release
Limited release
Limited release is a term in the American motion picture industry for a motion picture that is playing in a select few theaters across the country ....
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on May 9, 2008.
Plot
David Owen, a New York lawyer, is constantly plagued by noise, partiularly car alarms, but also burglar alarms and backup beepers. Despite putting up with the noise for years, including the formative years of his daughter, he finally breaks into a car to shut off its alarm, and is arrested by police. Owen and his family move to the countryside, but it only replaces one set of noise problems with another. Despite attempting to legally deal with the constant barrage of noise, he makes no progress, and continues to resort to vandalism, resulting in higher and higher court penalties and straining his relationship with his wife, who finally asks him to leave.While living on his own, Owen continues to destroy alarms, and progressively damages cars based on the number of violations. During this, he meets and begins a relationship with Ekaterina, a Russian student. After confronting him with the fact that he is "The Rectifier" a vigilante personality, complete with monikered stickers, that Owen has adopted. After falling in with him, Ekaterina convinces Owen to start a ballot initiative. While initially slow, the measure garners explosive popularity. Despite this, it is shut down by the Mayor Schneer, who disdains the Rectifier and believes supporting the measure would encourage vigilantism.
After being shutdown through loophole that prevents the ballot measure from appearing, Owen outfits a car with numerous alamrs and much louder horns. He then parks in front of city hall and sets off his alarms, citing the various laws that so frustrated Owen initially when city hall security demand he turn them off. After enraging a nearby tenant, Judge Kornreich, his vehicle is attacked and the judge is mistakenly arrested as The Rectifier. Kornreich sues Owen for pain and suffering damages, and Owen goes to court. During his cross-examination of Kornreich, Owen intentionally alludes that his actions could be considered assault and battery, establishing a legal precedent. Owen is found guilty, though Kornreich obviously intends to be lenient on him. Having won a irrevocably legal victory, Owen reunites with his wife. Walking out of the courthouse, an activist approaches Owen about blowing up a Billboard TV that has been causing accidents and is a eyesore of the cityscape. A dual ending is provided, one in which Owen flees with the activist, and one where he politely declines to accompany her and gets into a cab with his wife.
Cast
- Tim RobbinsTim RobbinsTimothy Francis "Tim" Robbins is an American actor, screenwriter, director, producer, activist and musician. He is the former longtime partner of actress Susan Sarandon...
as David Owen - Bridget MoynahanBridget MoynahanKathryn Bridget Moynahan , best known as Bridget Moynahan, is an American model and actress. After graduating from Longmeadow High School in 1989, Moynahan pursued a career in modeling. She was signed by a modeling agency, which led her to appear in department store catalogs and the covers of...
as Helen Owen - William HurtWilliam HurtWilliam McGill Hurt is an American stage and film actor. He received his acting training at the Juilliard School, and began acting on stage in the 1970s. Hurt made his film debut as a troubled scientist in the science-fiction feature Altered States , for which he received a Golden Globe nomination...
as Mayor Schneer - Margarita LevievaMargarita LevievaMargarita Levieva is an American actress. Born in the Soviet Union, she was a professional gymnast before going on to star in the films The Invisible, Adventureland and Spread.-Personal life:...
as Ekaterina Filippovna - María Ballesteros as Gruska
- William BaldwinWilliam BaldwinWilliam Joseph "Billy" Baldwin is an American actor, producer, and writer, known for his starring roles in such films as Flatliners , Backdraft , Sliver , Fair Game , Virus , Double Bang , as Johnny 13 in Danny Phantom , Art Heist , The Squid and the Whale , as himself...
as Mayor's Chief of Staff - Lou Carbonneau as Dante Moretti
- Chuck CooperChuck Cooper (actor)This article is about the African-American actor. For the late former pioneering African-American NBA basketball player, see Chuck Cooper .Chuck Cooper is an American actor....
as Judge Gibson - Stephen Adly GuirgisStephen Adly GuirgisStephen Adly Guirgis is an American playwright, screenwriter, director, and actor. He is a member and co-artistic director of New York City's LAByrinth Theater Company. His plays have been produced on five continents and throughout the United States....
as Anthony J. Corpitani - Helen HanftHelen Hanft-Biography:Hanft was born in New York City. She started her theatrical career in the early 1960 during the Golden Age of experimental theater at such venues as La Mama ETC and Caffe Cino and in a few years she became known as "the Helen Hayes of off-off Broadway." Not a great beauty, she...
as Forceful Juror - Peter Hoffman as Judge Kornreich
- Aaron LohrAaron LohrAaron Lohr is an American actor and singer. He is best known for his role as Dean Portman, one of the "Bash Brothers" in The Mighty Ducks movies...
as Rowdy Drinker - David MarguliesDavid MarguliesDavid Joseph Margulies is an American actor.Margulies was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Runya , a nurse and museum worker, and Harry David Margulies, a lawyer. Margulies graduated from City College of New York. Immediately afterward, he made his stage debut in the off-Broadway play Golden 6...
as Heart Attack Man - Keir O'DonnellKeir O'DonnellKeir O'Donnell is an Australian actor best known for his roles in the comedy films Wedding Crashers and Paul Blart: Mall Cop...
as Experienced Car Thief
Production
Henry BeanHenry Bean
Henry Bean is an American screenwriter, film director, producer, novelist, and actor.Most famous as a screenwriter, Bean wrote the screenplays for Internal Affairs, Deep Cover, Venus Rising, The Believer , Basic Instinct 2 and Noise.Bean...
has called the film partly autobiographical. Stephen Holden wrote that the film "is the second part of a projected "fanatic trilogy" that began with The Believer."
Critical reception
The film received mixed reviews from critics. The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
film critic Stephen Holden
Stephen Holden
Stephen Holden is an American writer, music critic, film critic, and poet.Holden earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Yale University in 1963...
called Noise "a one-trick film that rapidly wears out its welcome." Holden said the film "is shallow and loud" and "lurches unsteadily between drama and comedy." Holden wrote "Its performances are discordant" and said "you have to wonder to what degree Mr. Robbins, an actor famous for his political activism, is here simply because he shares Mr. Bean's outrage."
David Denby
David Denby (film critic)
David Denby is an American journalist, best known as a film critic for The New Yorker magazine.-Background and education:Denby grew up in New York City. He received a B.A...
of The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
wrote that the film "is certainly odd, but the movie is alive with the creative madness of New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
." Denby said "Surely a more glamorous actor would have given Noise a lighter, more satirical spin, but Robbins makes David a lost, unhappy man who needs to save himself, and that's the right way to go—it turns a one-note story into a universal fable." Denby praised the performance of Margarita Levieva
Margarita Levieva
Margarita Levieva is an American actress. Born in the Soviet Union, she was a professional gymnast before going on to star in the films The Invisible, Adventureland and Spread.-Personal life:...
as Ekatrina. Denby wrote "What saves Noise—and makes it almost continuously entertaining—is Bean's sense of the city as a gathering place of clever, chattering people."
Box office performance
The film opened in limited releaseLimited release
Limited release is a term in the American motion picture industry for a motion picture that is playing in a select few theaters across the country ....
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on May 9, 2008 and grossed $3,697 in 2 theaters its opening weekend.