Swiss Army Man (2016) - SPOILER-FREE Review

Editor’s Note: this is an old, unformatted, unedited review. The author’s opinion might not match the original thoughts written in this article.

Directed by: Dan Kwan, Daniel Scheinert

Starring: Paul Dano, Daniel Radcliffe, Mary Elizabeth Winstead

Runtime: 95 min

Weird. This movie is SO weird. I'll try my best to introduce it ... Swiss Army Man involves a guy named Hank (Paul Dano), who is stranded on an island and about to commit suicide, but when a supposed dead body appears near the sea, he stops and goes check it out. That dead body is Daniel Radcliffe's character, Manny ... And he can do basically anything! He can snap his fingers and start a fire or become a motor boat by farting. Yes, farting ... I told you this movie was weird! The story has its focus on Hank and Manny trying to escape and go back to civilization, but not without some life lessons between their adventures.

I'm not going to hold it in any longer, I loved this film! It's extremely well directed, super original, DIFFERENT and WEIRD. It has an amazing score that makes every scene so much better and a team of actors with their best performances so far. The directors constantly used childish and embarrassing things to talk about in public (farting, masturbation, etc) as metaphors to some of the most profound life lessons that I've ever heard.

There are so many scenes that I'll remember for a long time because they were so deep and true: there are a couple of scenes where Manny, who lost his memories and wanted to learn everything about life, asks Hank, who's partially using and deceiving Manny in order to return home,  why he wants to go back if they can't do anything? Why would he go back home if he has to hold in his farts and can't say what he wants to say? Because, in our world, that's rude, obscene ... And also a lie. This film points out so many moments of our lives that, when we think about it, they're so true that we don't even realize how often we do them. If I had to rate this movie in terms of inspiration and life motivation scenes, I give it an A+ straight away.

Daniel Radcliffe and Paul Dano have their best performances ever. The Harry Potter movies' kid is amazing and Dano is at the same level. They're hilarious and that's something I almost forgot to say: this movie is FUNNY! The humor is extremely good and there are so many scenes that just let me in tears of so much laughing. They transformed what could've been a B drama (and even boring) movie into a captivating film filled with life stories that we can all relate to.

The end of the movie doesn't really make sense to me and that's really my only main complaint about this film. Analyzing the movie from the beginning, as I put the pieces of the puzzle together, the ending doesn't appear to fit in with the rest of the story. I can understand what the directors were going for, but unfortunately, I don't think they were able to do it perfectly.

Still, Swiss Army Man wins the award for the Weirdest Movie of the Year with an astounding team of directors, actors and an epic score that I'm not going to forget that fast!

| A+ : 9.3-10 | A: 8.7-9.2 | A- : 8.0-8.6 | B+ : 7.3-7.9 | B: 6.7-7.2 | B- : 6.0-6.6 || C+ : 5.3-5.9 | C: 4.7-5.2 | C- : 4.0-4.6 | D+ : 3.3-3.9 | D: 2.7-3.2 | D- : 2.0-2.6 | F: 0-1.9 |