Film review: The Limits of Control

Published on Wednesday 23 December 2009 18:02

THE LIMITS OF CONTROL (15) * DIRECTED BY: JIM JARMUSCH STARRING: ISAACH DE BANKOLÉ, TILDA SWINTON, LOUIS TOSAR, GAEL GARCÍA BERNAL

Having acquired a modicum of mainstream success with his previous film, Broken Flowers, Jim Jarmusch does his best to alienate his newfound audience – not to mention established fans – with The Limits of Control, a wilfully abstract and dull hitman film in which the title feels like the smug punch-line to a tedious private joke. Working hard to remove anything approaching dramatic momentum or emotional depth, it follows Isaach De Bankol's impassive killer as he travels from Madrid to Seville, meeting a succession of oddball contacts along the way, each supplying him with an unspecified instruction designed to propel him towards his final hit.

That's it for plot, and it's hard to escape the suspicion that these oddballs are really just there to supply the film with an excuse for lots of finance-raising star cameos from the likes of John Hurt, Gael Garca Bernal, Bill Murray and, most irritatingly, Tilda Swinton, who turns up – in a clear homage to her director – with a shock of albino white hair espousing self-referential witticisms about liking films where people "just sit there, saying nothing". As a card-carrying Jarmusch fan, I managed to control the impulse to walk out, but only just.