Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Suman Roberson It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

TdSmth5 Some Japanese girls visit an Opera in Italy. Afterward, one of them hails a cab. The cab driver takes her through unexpected streets and when she protests, he abducts her.Later, a beautiful model hails the same cab and the same thing happens to her. The cabbie takes her to some basement. The Japanese girl is also there. But she is in bad shape, covered in blood and agonizing. The cabbie tortures her some more and then dumps her body.The model's sister contacts the police and meets some reluctant and rude detective. There's been a string of these crimes and he's tasked with the investigation. He also has flashbacks of when he was a child and saw his mother brutally killed by some guy. The sister basically gets to shadow him as the investigation proceeds. And we do learn more about the killer and the cop as well.When the body of Japanese woman is found they arrive in time. She's barely alive and utters some words which the cop records. It's a Buddhist prayer and also the word "yellow." The woman concludes that "yellow" could be a reference to the killer. He's yellow, he's got jaundice. Off they go to a clinic to demand to see patient files. That's when they see him running away. He escapes. The cop gets his address and goes to the killer's house and finds evidence, but no girls.The model in the meantime has escaped, but she doesn't make it far. The killer visits her sister and she tries to help him in exchange for the model but then the cop shows up and a shootout ensues. But the girl is still missing.Giallo, as other Argento and Italian movies made for the international market, doesn't convince. The movie looks like they're using 80s equipment. Audio, dubbing, are a disaster. The script is full of goofy lines, and acting overall doesn't convince. It does have some of the Giallo style, especially the beginning and the end. Elsa Pataky is lovely of course and the only thing truly enjoyable about Giallo. There's a bit of violence, a bit of gore, but not enough. We needed more victims and a stronger movie overall. There's no sense of dread. It's not the same to grab a girl that's already in a cab as opposed to seeing the villain stalk her, chase her, etc. Still, Giallo could have been worse. As always with Argento's recent movies, they don't fulfill one's unrealistic expectations but it's still worth a watch.

HumanoidOfFlesh Torino in Italy.Serial killer called Yellow is killing beautiful foreign women because he is ugly as hell.He kidnaps them first in his taxicab and proceeds to drug them.Then he mutilates his victims and photographs his deeds before each gruesome kill.Linda(Polanski's wife Emmanuelle Seigner)teams up with detective Enzo(Adrien Brody)and they both try to stop elusive killer before he kills Linda's captured sister.Being a fan of Dario Argento's gialli I was a bit disappointed with "Giallo".Actually I avoided watching this film for some time.First of all the killer called Yellow looks truly stupid.Still the cinematography of "Giallo" is truly beautiful and the acting is quite good.There are also some unpleasant scenes of gore and carnal mutilations,but the film lacks suspense and truly engaging story.7 slashings out of 10.

callanvass (Credit IMDb) In Italy, a woman fears her sister may have been kidnapped. Inspector Enzo Avolfi fears its worse. They team up to rescue her from a sadistic killer known only as Yellow.I saw this a few months ago. I was on a big Argento craze, and this was one of the movies I viewed. Despite the clever title, this is NOT up to Argento's usual standards, not even close. It actually starts off well, with some decent suspense, and some good build-up. I was thinking I may be in for one of those gems, which so many people seem to despise. This turned out to be false as it began to shoot itself in the foot. I don't know why Dario Argento had Adrien Brody play the detective, and the serial killer, but it wasn't a wise choice. It got a bit annoying and confusing for me. Couldn't they have found someone else to play the serial killer, or vice versa? Brody is actually solid as the detective, but he's far too OTT as the killer. The mumbling grated me a lot. This doesn't seem to fully know what it desires to be, and the result is a jumbled mess. It also lacks a true hero we can all relate too. Yes. Brody is solid, but his character isn't that sympathetic, and I didn't care about any of the dames either. The gore delivers, though. A syringe in the face and fun with lips are just a couple of the highlights in this one. The gore is probably the best thing in the filmFinal Thoughts: Has Dario lost his touch? I don't wanna believe it. I've yet to see Dracula 3D, but people claim it's awful. I'm waiting for that day when Dario puts out something that is worthy of his one of a kind talent. Come on Dario, enough with the mediocrity!4.6/10

Witchfinder General 666 The Italian Horror deity Dario Argento is probably my choice for THE greatest living Horror director (and one of the greatest of all-time). A master of the Italian Giallo, Argento helped define the genre in its heyday in the early 70s with his animal trilogy (L'UCCELLO DALLE PIUME DI CRISTALLO, IL GATO A NOVE CODE, 4 MOSCHE DI VELUTO GRIGIO) and perfected it with the 1975 masterpiece PROFONDO ROSSO (1975), the most famous Giallo which is widely regarded to be the highlight of the genre, and kept the Genre alive after its heyday with brilliant and bloody films such as TENEBRE (1982) or OPERA (1987). Even when doing supernatural Horror films, Argento always gave them a touch of the Giallo, be it supernatural Horror films with Giallo-elements like SUSPIRIA (1977) and INFERNO (1980), or a Giallo with supernatural elements, such as PHENOMENA (1985). Argento's unique talent to build up blood-curling Horror and suspense through atmosphere, and to combine gruesome and gory acts of violence with elegance and beauty make Argento's films so essential.His 2009 film GIALLO was generally negatively perceived by my fellow fans of the man, which is the reason why I delayed the viewing for quite a long while. The first observation to be made when watching GIALLO is the fact that this is technically not really a Giallo. A typical Giallo generally revolves around a murder series (the victims typically being hot young women), in which a protagonist is a possible next victim, the murders often being spectacular and gory, and the killer's identity remaining hidden until the end. Actually, the phantom identity of the killer (and guessing who it could be) was one of the main points of the Giallo (with some exceptions such as the great Mario Bava's IL ROSSO SEGNO DELLA FOLLIA, Luigi Cozzi's L'ASSASSINO È COSTRETTO AD UCCIDERE ANCORA or Rentao Polselli's DELIRIO CALDO).GIALLO is also about a murder series, the victims of which are young women. However, guessing the killer's identity is no central point of the movie, it actually gets revealed half the way into the film. There is no guessing who the killer could be, none of the other characters is suspicious. We know who the killer is when we first see his face. Also, the murders are not in a typical gory but elegant Giallo-fashion. The killer poses as a taxi driver and kidnaps his victims in a cab, then tortures them to death, making GIALLO closer to 2000s 'torture-porn' of the HOSTEL-type than a typical Giallo.In Turin, Linda (Emanuelle Seigner) reports her model sister Celine (Elsa Pataky) missing. Half New Yorker Homicide detective Enzo Avolfi (Adrien Brody) soon realizes that the disappearance of the beautiful young woman must be the work of a pattern killer whose objective is to destroy beauty...Generally speaking GIALLO has its highs and lows. Many fellow Argento-fans seem to despise this film. I can understand the disappointment; however, something being disappointing by Argento's high standards does not necessarily make it bad, and GIALLO is definitely an above-par present day Horror film. There are two childhood-flashbacks in the movie, one of which i found to be good, the other bad. Way before the movie ends, the killer's motivations are explained by childhood trauma; this is something I generally hate because it lessens the creepiness of the murderer. Argento's fame obviously allowed a high budget and the hiring of famous international actors Adrien Brody and Emanuelle Seigner. Both are good actors, and both are good in their roles, even though the characters are very stereotypical. Brody's chain-smoking Inspector with a super-rough voice is the walking stereotype of the disillusioned homicide detective who is eaten up by the horrors he has experienced. The movie was filmed in English, which shows. Even though the entire film is set in Turin, there is barely a word of Italian spoken. The score by Mario Werba is OK, but it doesn't even nearly play in the same league as the brilliant scores by Goblin/Clauio Simonetti, that were part of what made Argento's masterpieces so great. The gore is brutal but not as elegant as in Argento's old films. As any Argento movie, this was elegantly shot, but, again, there is no comparison to his 70s and 80s films; and while the film is suspenseful and gloomy enough is is nowhere near as scary as Argento's many masterpieces.I was not really disappointed with GIALLO, because other Argento fans had previously (and exaggeratedly) complained about it. GIALLO is a solid and suspenseful Horror thriller, it is just not good by Argento standards. Argento made a great Giallo as recent as 2001 with NON HO SONNO. GIALLO just isn't one. But while this is a below-par Argento movie, it is still a more than decent thriller. I'm now curious about how Argento's Dracula 3D project (which is due in 2012) will turn out.