If you aren't a fan of Godard, chances are you will leave this film unamused and irritated. If you ARE a fan of Godard, as I am, chances are you will probably enjoy this film quite a bit...that is if you're a big enough fan (people who perhaps have favourable opinions on only some of his films and are likely to dislike others may or may not actually be into 'Made in U.S.A.'), and since I am a pretty big fan of Jean-Luc Godard and the decent number of his films I have seen, this was a largely fun watch. The typical political elements of a Godard film of this nature did go a little overboard for me at times and sometimes even became sorta vaguely annoying, but for the most part the satire is strong and on point, complete with some meta jokes and the scent of genre parody running through this film's 85 minutes. It's a rather funny film, one sequence particularly stands out to me as comic gold in which the lead character visits a bar with one of the most odd and quirky bartenders of all as a couple of other characters seem to be showing off their quirks as well with some hilarious dialogue (another fantastic thing about this scene is its construction, it is all one lengthy shot and the camera remains mostly stationary while occasionally panning to the left, normally just to follow the moving bartender, and yet it isn't visually bland, and the scene itself refuses to ever become at all boring). The plot is a mixture of cliche and cultural commentary and is interrupted with Avant-Godardism and philosophical rambling, much of which is spoken by the actors while directly staring at the camera, and absurdist antics, and for a large portion of the film it is highly entertaining and occasionally genuinely masterful. Perhaps not Godard's best, but certainly a film worthy of his legendary name.
Review of Made in U.S.A
