Just perfect...

How sad is this?

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Targets is a pointless but engaging thriller, that is a mixed mess.So the film started off in another film and I had no idea what film I was watching or what it was about, so that was pretty cool. Every review raves about Karloff, I'm suppose to care who that is am I? I know he was in "Frankenstein". Anyway, he was fine, though the bit at the end where he walks up to the killer and slaps him is laughable. So Bobby says to his wife "You don't think I can do anything do you" and that is all we learn about why he goes off killing people. Byron says "Nobody cares about a painted monster anymore" and points to his newspaper about a shooting, when there is real horror out there. There are two separate stories and then the two come together in a silly conclusion. One with depth that is uneventful and the other eventful without any depth, you put the two together and you get? I don't know, an unwritten character that takes up half the screen-time. It's not a great film nor is it a bad film, it was fine.

Targets(1968)Targets tells the unsettling story of a young man who has gone amok and proceeds to kill any person in sight and how its parallels with the life of a faded horror star. I have to give it to Bogdanovich, he is probably the one of few directors that either gives you great hits or ultimate misses. I have brushed a lot of his film thru and watched it and every time he makes this kind of disasters you wonder if it is the same director that made those greater films. So let us just say that it has every thing expected from his worst features. A pedigree for very questionable performances (beginning with his very own performance), off-putting heavy-handed storytelling that tries too hard too include too many things at once and an amateurish camera work to be edgy (which I will give him a pass in this film since this is a B film after all). In the end, I just could not get the hype of it. I get that it tries to be deep and meaningful but its just did not gave me that spark. It is just too inconsistent in tone and try-hard script-wise. It sure has its moments but in the end it would be remembered by Karloff film where he plays himself. Nothing more and nothing less.

Targets is directed by Peter Bogdanovich who also co-writes the screenplay and story with Polly Platt and Samuel Fuller. It stars Boris Karloff, Tim O'Kelly and Bogdanovich himself. Story is patterned around real life mass murderer Charles Whitman, who in 1966 murdered 16 people during a shooting rampage at the University of Texas in Austin.Cineaste Peter Bogdanovich's debut directing effort, sadly, to this day remains a topical hot spot. Released as it was just after the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, Targets carried much relevance even though it was hardly a success at the box office. Over the years it has come to gain a cult following that is much deserved, the low budget production value actually helping to keep it uneasily potent.Story is structured by way of two separate narrative threads, one sees Karloff as veteran horror film actor Byron Orlock, who sees himself as an anachronism and announces his retirement from movie making. His reasoning, warranted, is that his type of horror is way behind the times, the real horror is out there on the streets, bleakly headlined in the local newspaper. The other thread concerns Bobby Thompson (O'Kelly), a handsome boy next door type who has a pretty wife but finds himself unemployed and still living with his parents. He is a ticking time bomb, his mind soon to fracture and devastation will follow. The two stories converging for a bloody finale at a drive in movie theatre, where Orlock is making a special guest appearance, the old time horror of the movies coming face to face with the real terror of the modern world.Though uncredited by choice, the screenplay belongs to Fuller, something that Bogdanovitch has always been keen to point out, and it's with the writing where the film gets its quality factor. The messages within are serious and handled evenly by Bogdanovitch, his pacing precise and in Karloff he has the perfect icon from which to underpin the story. True enough the acting around Karloff is sub-standard, notably from the director himself, but with Bogdanovich deliberately keeping the psychological explanation for Bobby's actions vague, film manages to rise above its flaws to leave an indelible mark. 8/10

Coming at the tail end of the sixties, when the American dream ideal was hugely doubted, Peter Bogdanovich's debut film is pretty much like no other around at that time. It tells the dual stories of two individuals and how fate and circumstance bring them together.Boris Karloff plays aged Bryan Orlok, in a role that mirrors his own personal life, as he decides to quit the movie business due to his own increasing apathy with the changing world around him. At the same time Bobby Thompson, a young man who is paranoid and disconnected from society, goes over the edge and decides to make his mark by killing.The style and tone of the film makes this a refreshing and alternative take on how people interact, with more than its fair share of social commentaries. Filmed with a slow, methodical approach, and bereft of soundtrack, its cold objective view of the two lead characters, especially with the killer, makes for unsettling viewing. The acting is also top notch and if you were ever in doubt of the talents of Karloff then this will surely convince. He effortlessly handles the often lengthy takes with great skill and at one point recounts a scary tale that will please his fans. The scene near the end where Karloff turns and marches towards the assailant is outstanding.Echoing the real life killings carried out by Charles Whitman two years previous which shook America, this is a short sharp shock into a particular heart of darkness.