I love small, quiet, subtle movies. I root for independent films. I'm sick of Hollywood blockbusters about comic book action heroes that have nothing remotely in common with anything resembling real life. I've been a fan of Miramax since they began. I really liked "Whale Rider." I'm a huge fan of foreign movies like "Cinema Paradiso," "Raise the Red Lantern," "The Bicycle Thief," "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown," "Mediterraneo" and countless others. I think much (if not most) of what Hollywood perpetrates these days is pure trash. Well, despite all that, despite the fact that I really wanted to like this movie, I'm sorry, even though this is honest storytelling, honestly, the story isn't worth telling. I watched and yawned, occasionally chuckled, but mostly I didn't care at all about what happened to Victor Vargas or any of those around him. Perhaps that says something about me as a human being. Maybe I'm too comfortable living in the suburbs, going to the malls, watching foreign films in the comfort of my living room, sending my kids off to mostly white schools and soccer camps. Whatever. No matter what you might think about me, though, it doesn't change the fact that this movie, despite what the critics will tell you -- critics who I generally agree with -- Victor Vargas, the character and the movie, are just plain boring. Everyday life isn't exciting. That's why we go to the movies. That's why we read books. That's why we go to the theater, the opera, concerts, sporting events. That's why we change jobs, take vacations, take up hobbies, have affairs, go back to school and leave our spouses and families in search of something we can't put our fingers on. Because real life just isn't that interesting, at least not all the time. Certainly, it doesn't always make for interesting movies. "Raising Victor Vargas" is case in point. It proves that art is not life. Art is a heightening of life. I can watch the grass grow, the paint peal, the bird take flight, the young couple hold hands, the addict get high and the cop make his bust whenever I feel like it. And if I want to watch a movie about the problems of youth growing up in New York or anywhere else in America, I'll find a worthy documentary. But art should make any of those events unusual and interesting, not ordinary and boring. Art needs an audience after all. Don't waste your time on Victor Vargas; it's real, it has a message, it's well acted, well directed, but it's definitely not a story that needed telling. And it's not art. It's just plain boring.
