Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

I have not been so supremely pi$$ed at a movie for a long, long time...I was REALLY drawn into this one. The writing, acting, and especially the direction was beautifully done. Even the soundtrack was excellent.BUT...This is the kind of film where right from the beginning you just KNOW that things are not going to turn out well. But, as step by step, scene by scene, things develop along quite surprising lines, you actually begin to think that just MAYBE things might turn out in a positive way. Well, they WERE... until at the very last moment when the director or whoever decided to end the movie in the completely pointless way that they did. For NO reason that I could see, they pull out the rug from under us and COMPLETELY defeat the clever, and extremely entertaining and thrilling suspense that has been artfully built, layer upon layer throughout the entire movie. In a moment, it's all just gone, for nothing... I can understand IF you start out with the purpose of making a Noirish film where you show how people making the wrong decisions or acting selfishly lead them to a quagmire of self-destruction. Fine... Classic FILM NOIR is full of excellent stories like that. BUT... in this case, they take all this time, care, and effort to build such a complex web of circumstances that you really start to get amped that they just MIGHT get away with it. And then, in just the passage of literally a moment, they completely destroy EVERYTHING that they have painstakingly built up throughout the movie. To me, that is just about THE most stupid and utterly disappointing thing you can possibly do to an audience... We are left with the feeling of, 'What the hell was the point of all that?'That is not what I call an effective film. Certainly NOT an entertaining one... Sure, a lot of the circumstances and events that happen to them are VERY implausible; that is true. But that is the point. Why build up all these almost impossible breaks and chances that they get and deliberately slant the film towards building up all this expectation, just to smash it all by some completely random, senseless action...? Why...? You either build a Classic Noir morality tale where the audience KNOWS that the characters are doomed from the start. Or, you create a film where all these wildly improbable things happen where they get away with it, leaving the audience entertained from the sheer amazingness of it. But, you don't build it up one way just deliberately to play with the audience and destroy their expectations because of some random, meaningless thing that happens at the last moment. I just do NOT see the entertainment value of doing it that way at all. You either present these doomed characters from the beginning where at the end the audience feels, 'well, they brought it on themselves', thus the morality tale, or you construct it in a way that seems to build up the expectation that these guys are going to beat fate after all. Either one or the other, but not some disappointing B@stardized version of both.That just leaves the audience with a totally pointless and VERY unsatisfied feeling.Just my lowly and wretched opinion...

One should always be aware of the Law of Unintended Consequences when they set out to commit a crime. You may have to live with more than you bargained for.Lovers of Double Indemnity will find the story familiar. Raymond (David Roberts) and his lover Carla (Claire van der Boom) plan to steal money and leave their partners. Things, of course, do not go smoothly.There are twists and turns aplenty in the noir film, and it keeps you wondering who is going to come up with the next one.Roberts was excellent and the film was extremely well done.One hopes Joel Edgerton writes more like this.

Aussies aren't known for their film making. After seeing "Not Quite Hollywood" I'm not surprised! But, they really do do some impressive films "Wolf Creek", "Storm Warning" to name a few. Now, "The Square" is another worthy film."The Square" ultimately has a moral in it. Don't have a bloody affair! It's simple and yet after affair related films such as "Fatal Attraction", "Dear Wife" we still get idiots doing the dirty on their poor faithful partners! (Always men as well, just an observation). Now down to The Square's realistic, raw directing it may just drill this idea into people with adultery on their minds.The screenplay, although wildly in-your-face is actually presented as quite believable. the acting is also quite passable and the sub plot with the dogs is so romantic (I say sub-plot, more of a side dish). The Square can be quite shocking at times and the ending left me feeling quite flourished.I don't think The Square should disappoint you, some might find the pacing a bit lazy but the sharp screenplay should keep you on edge. Give the Aussies a chance mate.

When the dog got killed I laughed, soft-hearted dog lover that I am, because the Dog was standing in for the Square. (And what a dog! Able to race through neighborhoods, swim a river and then run through yet another neighborhood to find his cutie!) Come to think of it, the two owners of the dogs, in the opening sequence, while hooking up, had both dogs in the same car. Maybe the director's cut will open on the two dogs having a go of it and then pan over to Ray and Carla getting it on. But seriously..... By not showing a compelling reason, other than sex, in even one scene, I had increasing difficulty over Ray's willingness to dump everything for the sake of his sex mate. And jumping to the end of the movie, after a badly staged scene of Carla getting killed.....and the camera-on-a-crane showing a disconsolate and bloody Ray walking down the street away from the carnage, one is supposed to say 'tsk-tsk' poor guy. But I didn't have any sympathy for either Carla or Ray at that point. How do you sympathize with characters who have little character and who you don't like?Other more technical annoyances were a couple of impenetrable accents and also poor casting choices which made it confusing to know who was who.Why did Lenny steal the generator? And what did he have on Ray?It also wasn't enough to kill, in a road accident, the suspicious foreman but the writers had to also place an infant in the vehicle.After a break in, wouldn't the obvious thing to happen, with all the materials lying around, be the hiring of a security guard?And pray tell how did the boss-of-bosses and the law know about the blackmailing? More important, how were they going to resolve the serious breach of the law that they were involved in?There really were more silly things gathering along the way but you get the idea.....