Funny Ha Ha

It's very rare for me to walk out of a film, literally or metaphorically in the case of a DVD by simply ejecting it; by the time one of the smirking, insolent home invaders has turned to the camera and mugged a grin, I was overcome with the nasty-taste-in-the-mouth feeling I was being manipulated, and only in the service of Haneke's need to hector his audience about how dreadful their influence on movies is. A powerful "What Have I Done?" moment (such as the famous long shot at the end of Taxi Driver) takes an entire film to be in the service of, and crucially requires the audience to follow Travis because they care about him, not because they are tied up with telephone wire and lashed to him. The two anti-heroes in this film are ciphers, punchable at that, and no more watchable or dramatically compelling than animated juvenile crime statistics.