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Reviews Counted:32
Fresh:15
Rotten:17
Average Rating:5.1/10
Consensus: Quirky animated interludes fail to lift this dull US immigrant indie out of its introverted torpid state.
Theatrical Release:Nov 9, 2007 Limited
Synopsis: Set in New York's Jamaica, Queens, CHOKING MAN illustrates the neighborhood's rich diversity. Ecuadorian immigrant Jorge (Octavio Gómez Berríos) washes dishes at a local diner, where he connects... [More]
Starring: Octavio Gómez Berríos, Eugenia Yuan, Aaron Paul, Mandy Patinkin
Director: Steve Barron
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There's enough charm and enterprise here to win over viewers who have the patience to stick by the tongue-tied Jorge. An intriguing change of direction for pop-video pioneer Barron, though next time he might like to cut loose that bit more.
In this case, what looks like an ambitious film-school project, complete with heavy-handed sincerity, experimental camera style, and an overplayed central metaphor, becomes gently lyrical and melancholy.
They don't add up to much; and he's just too passive to make us care even slightly about whether he gets the girl or ends up taking a meat-cleaver to his rival.
The film marries digicam naturalism to animated fantasy to oddsome but fascinating effect, rendering magical the inner world of the shy and almost muted Jorge. It's an unusual but valuable addition to the cinema of contemporary migration.
Despite efforts to impart a little tension and human interest, the tale is told with such discretion, it’s almost anonymous.
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[Barron] has made Jorge so deeply withdrawn that you are unable to really feel anything for him other than a blind pity, which is decidedly not the stuff of compelling dramaturgy.
rises above the mundane with the inclusion of some gorgeous animated interludes and just a touch of Latin American-style magical realism.
Modest, quirky, well acted by an unknown cast.
Some US indie films are so torpid, so pointless and so incredibly whingey that you want to reach into the screen and slap the face of everyone involved. This film, by writer-director Steve Barron, is one such.
Overburdened with disorienting stylistic devices and contrived plot elements that reduce the psychological depth to which it aspires.
It's meant to be a portrait of a man "choked" by his own alienation, but Jorge's shyness comes over as dullness, and after all the sensitive maundering the conclusion is a terrible letdown.
For all its concern with social and mental disintegration, Choking Man is a strangely tender film.
... wants to take us into Jorge's mind, though a less interesting and pleasant place would be hard to imagine.
Choking Man mainly falters in its inability to reconcile the darker psychological elements of Jorge's mind and all that they portend.
The movie suffocates under the weight of too many wrong choices.
Barron's direction is low-key but efficient.
For all its enticing dramatic hooks, Choking Man has a fairly unrewarding conclusion.
Choking Man is harsh and intermittently affecting but oppressively contrived and mostly pointless.
The film looks so good it could play without sound.
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