Review: 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' treats 9/11 crassly

"Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" might have also added "and Fairly Obnoxious."

It's the rare film with the chutzpah to trade on the 9/11 tragedy, a damaged grieving boy and a mute old man; but this film based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer and directed by Stephen Daldry ("The Hours") does just that, managing to match implausibility to crass sentimentality.

The film's focus is 9-year-old Oskar (Thomas Horn), a socially awkward child whose father (Tom Hanks, seen in constant flashbacks) died in the World Trade Center attacks and whose mother (Sandra Bullock) is left grieving and empty.

Oskar keeps a secret stash of things connected to his father, including some final, tense phone messages his mother doesn't know about.

But then he stumbles on a key to an unknown lock with the word "Black" attached. So he begins a methodical search for every person with the last name Black in New York City.

Soon he's combing the streets, knocking on doors, telling strangers his story and asking them if they have any spare locks that need opening, confident that one will offer up some last message from his father.

The cute-kookiness factor is raised when Oskar meets The Renter (Max von Sydow), a man who rooms with his grandmother and doesn't speak. Instead he has "No" written on one palm and "Yes" on the other, which he augments with scribbling. The two team up to continue the search.

Umpteen tearful revelations later this all adds up to not much really. Mixing the horror of 9/11 with a cutesy story about a boy's unlikely quest just comes off as crass. Throwing a tragic old man on top — to no apparent purpose, really — cheapens things further.

"Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" is the kind of movie you want to punch in the nose.

tlong@detnews.com

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