MrJonahjacob . (jonahwp) While was unaware of Funny Games prior to watching it over 20 years after its release, I am not disappointed that I chose to view Michael Haneke's psychological thriller.A number of factors sold this film to me as one of the better thrillers that I have seen in a while. The most notable of these factors are Ulrich Mühe (Georg) and Susanne Lothar's (Anna) performances. Both of these actors displayed their devastation brilliantly and stayed on the proper side of the fine line between an upset character and an annoying character. Never did the emotions of these two characters get on my nerves or give me a headache, so coo-dos to that. At points, however, I did feel as if these two characters were not reacting realistically to a specific event that occurred in the second act of the film (which I shall not get into because it is a spoiler... oh no). Additionally, I believe that Haneke's choice to not show much of the violence actually take place on camera was wise. Haneke's message behind this movie was to highlight the dark nature behind violence, a subject which is often exploited and glorified in movies. Funny Games does not treat the viewer to a video of a shotgun exploding a guy's head that makes the audience turn in disgust. Instead, the film focuses on the emotions that violence causes and the darkness that it brings to the lives of many. It was the deterioration of the film's protagonists that was caused by violence that I found truly disturbing.Finally, (I felt the need to comment on this as it is often brought up in forums about this film) there is a certain character in that breaks the fourth wall. Does this work for the movie? Sort of. I believe that it worked well at times to provide relief from the heavy load of this film. However, I felt as though this character often removed from the realistic and captivating features of this film when he spoke directly to the audience. Overall, Funny Games is a hidden gem that will not make you shut your eyes due to the blood and gore on the screen, but disturb you in a different way. It will make you stay up the night and think about the themes and messages that you observed. It will make you question the true nature of violence and (perhaps) look down upon certain films that glorify it. While Funny Games is not without its issues, it is an above average psychological thriller that I would recommend. Rate: 8.4/10

durkopeter1996 I think that says it all. Not enough that the movie makes ABSOLUTELY no sense, it also gets you frustrated and angry. Without ANY REASON.I didn't just lose 2 hours of my life that i'm never getting back, I also lose a lot of my brain cells in the process. I have to spit thinking about this movie...

tankace Many persons want to go in to the film industry but they usually hit the wall of big studios and the need of funds. And the independent films is a way for them to cut their teeth in and if the director, acting crew and writing team use what they have in the best way then you can get something like the now famous examples of Evil Dead(1981) , Reservoir Dogs(1992) ,Mad Max(1977), Memento (2000), The Terminator (1984) and many more and this film is also in to this category.The experienced TV director Micheal Haneke tried for the first time to direct of feature film and using his limited resources he made this small but very well paced, chilling film. In short he used his experienced working on a TV set which lacks usually space in to make feel the stress, fear and shock about this home invasion. Another great part of the film are the antagonists especially Arno Frisch due to his attitude and intelligence that makes him both intimidating dispute his slender physic and the plump body of his friend.Over all it is a very good independent film and I recommended to very film buff.

Rafael Jaramillo Michael Haneke (MH) is a not so mainstream director (such as Martin Scorsese for example), but he definitely should be. This review will be based 60% in "Funny Games" (FG) and 40% in MH as a director. I find myself very fond of him due to one simple fact: he's a modern-day Stanley Kubrick (SK), which I regard as the best film director/auteur of all time. Dedicated to analyze and explore the dark sides of humanity, he achieves in this film a "funny" portrayal of his point of view about Violence.FG is not for the faint of heart. MH has a distaste of how Hollywood portrays violence in movies, which is an explicit and morbid exploitation, which sometimes reaches unhealthy levels. Talking about violence in the film: the film is violent, but you never get to see violent or bloody images. MH loves to take the attention away from those detailed moments to create expectations and make the audience's imagination start playing "games". The uncertainty of this moments makes the heavy atmosphere of the flick. The greatest example is: when Paul is making himself a sandwich and you hear the gunshot and consequent screams; you feel desperate for knowing what happened. If the movie was made by a USA filmmaker, it is very probably that you could see what happened, in detail.The film walks between fiction and reality. Paul makes various fourth-wall breaks throughout the movie, and he even rewinds the scene where Anna shoots Peter (not allowing that to happen). Peter, on the other hand, refers and critic many aspects of the traditional suspense rules established by USA films. We are accustomed to seeing the protagonist win and live to tell the tale, well, not here. Paul and Peter even have an interesting discussion about fiction and reality at the end of the film, which makes you think about it afterward.Our main villains: charming well-educated sociopaths that will do whatever they please with whoever they want. Taking Paul as the leader, a little perfect Hannibal Lecter (leaving aside Cannibalism and Psychopathy). In the end, they did everything for just one simple aspect: because they could, and no one has ever told them they couldn't do something.Attention is what MH plays within his movies. He demands complete attention from you to understand. Whether it is with Long Shots or never giving explicit detail of what's going on, MH proves to be a skillful manipulator of the audience to achieve this: you leaving the theater wanting more. We are used to finishing a movie totally satisfied with what we saw and how everything ended (happily ever after). Well, not with MH. He wants you to go browsing and find whatever you can about what you just saw. Most than nothing, he wants you to make your OWN conclusions about the story: "Caché" (2005) and "The White Ribbon" (2009) for naming two. MH has between 10 to 15 movies to his name, all of them considered good movies, showing different aspects of humanity (often the dark ones), with a perfect sense of direction and meticulous execution. Tell me if this doesn't remind you of SK: Quality before Quantity. It is also important to state the difference between horror and terror. Horror is for fictional and irrational fears (ghosts and supernatural situations), and terror is for real things (a murderer or an accident). This movie is which? Kind of both isn't it?. On one side, you have a home invasion and in the other an antagonist that can manipulate time and space for achieving success. MH said that the movie was a message about violence in media. He said FG was intended to be neither horror nor terror.Something funny is that MH hates Quentin Tarantino (QT), mostly because he mixes violence and comedy, and his violence is extremely satirical. MH has a violent and bold style for most of his movies. He believes that violence portrayed in movies should have a serious and deep approach, special reason why he despises QT's movies. MH's filming style, psychological approach, and audience manipulation are his greatest weapons. He doesn't fear to make a movie of any theme or genre, and whenever he does, the final product is an instant masterpiece. He made a shot-for-shot remake of FG in 2007 with an entire USA crew. The film received mixed reviews. Why? Because it wasn't the kind of violence and suspense USA audiences like. MH wanted to prove a point, and he succeeded. MY FINAL CONSENSUS: Funny Games is out of the question a different kind of suspense and thriller, but a pretty interesting and effective one. Michael Haneke plays with audiences, in order to bring an excellent law-breaker critic of violence portrayal.