Day on Fire

Stripped of its various superfluous elements, Day on Fire would surely sport a running time of about five minutes – as filmmaker Jay Anania has infused the bulk of the proceedings with a nonsensical, thoroughly pretentious vibe. There’s no actual plot here; Anania instead offers up a series of barely-developed figures and forces them to spout dialogue that doesn’t sound even remotely authentic (ie nobody talks this way). Exacerbating matters is Anania’s penchant for placing his characters into increasingly mundane situations, with a long sequence in which Martin Donovan’s Walter admires his reflection a particularly apt example of this. And although the performances are decent and there’s a third act twist that’s admittedly pretty nifty, Day on Fire is, for the most part, a thunderously boring endeavor that generally serves as solid proof that Anania flat-out hates his audience.

no stars out of ****