The Loveless

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow and Monty Montgomery, The Loveless follows a motorcycle gang, led by Willem Dafoe’s Vance, as they spend some time in a small town en route to Florida. Filmmakers Bigelow and Montgomery, working from their own screenplay, deliver a meandering, uneventful drama that grows less and less interesting as it progresses, which is a shame, certainly, given that the picture does possess a fairly distinctive sensibility that’s reflected in its myriad of oddball attributes – with, especially, the stark, stylized dialogue and Dafoe’s deadpan performance emblematic of the picture’s decidedly avant-garde modus operandi. There’s never a point, ultimately, at which Bigelow and Montgomery are able to wholeheartely capture and sustain the viewer’s attention, and although the movie contains a very small handful of compelling interludes, The Loveless is, by and large, an experimental misfire that feels disastrously long even at just 82 minutes.

** out of ****