Babel

2006

Action / Drama

135
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 77% · 203 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 77% · 250K ratings
IMDb Rating 7.5/10 10 327671 327.7K

daughter first time loss of loved one gun deaf-mute san diego, california

Plot summary

Tragedy strikes a married couple vacationing in the Moroccan desert, which jumpstarts an interlocking story involving four different families.

Director

Alejandro González Iñárritu Photo
Alejandro González Iñárritu

Top cast

Elle Fanning Photo
Elle Fanning as Debbie Jones
Brad Pitt Photo
Brad Pitt as Richard
R.D. Call Photo
R.D. Call as FBI Interrogation Officer
Aaron D. Spears Photo
Aaron D. Spears as Officer #2
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
706.69 MB
1280*720
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
2 hr 23 min
Seeds 26
2.64 GB
1920*1040
English 5.1
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
2 hr 23 min
Seeds 53

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by Steve9920 6 / 10

It is enjoyable, but not really that clever?

4 tenuously connected stories, beautifully shot, admirable soundtrack, and competent acting and directing. But, psychologically, philosophically, sociologically meaningful? Perhaps in their individual stories? But as a whole, I for one cannot connect the dots in this one.Different people, different races, socio economic classes, cultures, countries, oh, and of course languages, hence communication. A lot of them making really stupid decisions, one in each tale, giving rise to tension and drama in each. Rich or poor, east or west, weak or strong, everyone is prone to just doing the wrong things at times.It was a decent watch, even given the over bloated running time. If it affected you? Then you have understood the directors language I guess.
Reviewed by dead47548 8 / 10

Listen.

Alejandro González Iñárritu's two previous films, Amores Perros and 21 Grams, dealt with the subject of very different people being connected on a small scale. Babel takes a different approach, but has the same central theme. The plot follows four different stories that stretch the entire globe (Morocco, Japan, Mexico and a few minutes in America) and shows how one single bullet can effect the lives of people so far apart. Guillermo Arriaga's script is breathtaking and perfectly structures this vast array of characters. Within minutes of being with them, we know exactly who they are and what drives their current personality. This gives time for the epic story to play out.It's all centered around two young boys who are fooling around with a rifle and accidentally shoot American tourist Susan (Cate Blanchett) who is on "vacation" with her husband Richard (Brad Pitt). Though never directly saying it, it's quite clear that one of their son's died and Richard panicked and left his family behind; leaving Susan to care for their two remaining children. He came back and their vacation to Morocco was really just an excuse for them to get away and try to get their marriage back together. Ultimately it does bring them back to each other, but it takes tragedy to do so. Brad Pitt's performance is one of the finest of 2006 and his internal pain and emotional strength manage to bring a river of tears flowing from my eyes. It's his best performance since Twelve Monkeys and further proves that through all of the controversy of his social life, he's still a phenomenal actor. Back in America, their nanny Amelia (Adriana Barraza) is taking care of their two children while they are gone. Through unfortunate circumstances she has to bring them to Mexico for her son's wedding and things take a huge turn for the worse when they try to cross back over into America.The final story is a much further departure from the rest of the characters. It centers around a deaf-mute Japanese schoolgirl named Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi) who struggles with the pain of being so different from everyone else along with her mother's apparent suicide and the police's attempt at questioning her father about a gun he gave to a Moroccan man (the gun used to shoot Susan).While most people believe that the film is about how people living so close to each other can be so different, I actually feel that it's the exact opposite. I think it's a story of how people so far apart (on different continents, speaking different languages) are almost exactly alike. All of the stories center around similar themes; loneliness, alienation, depression, the loss of a loved one and more while Arriaga never forgets to subtly mention the political outrage that comes from an American woman being shot in a foreign country. Every character feels the same emotions, deals with similar pain and are all connected by this single shooting. Babel starts off as a film about very different people in very different worlds, but ends up being one studying human nature and showing that even when we're worlds apart people we can still be so similar. All you have to do is listen.
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