I must admit that I have a problem with Michael Haneke’s new movie. What is the point to remake your own 10 years-old movie and not to change anything, besides the cast and other minor details? If you failed to deliver the message the first time, how would you know that you will succeed to make a point at the second attempt? And how odd is it shooting the same movie, frame by frame?

However, according to the press materials, Michael Haneke, a German-born director, decided to remake his 1998 movie because the film is intended to be a not-so-subtle critique of the way in which the American cinema and media are presenting the violence as a form of entertainment.

The original “Funny Games” was spoken in German and it failed to catch on in the United States. But after his success with “Cache”, Haneke felt like it was time to remake his horror masterpiece.

He enrolled a new cast, a new set of props, but otherwise, the movie follows the same plot line while dialogues are a perfect translation of the original ones.

The story behind “Funny Games” is simple, quite straight and from the very beginning you will have little to no doubts about what will follow. Not even the end will come as a shock.

Ann (Naomi Watts) and George Farber (Tim Roth) are a perfectly-happy middle class American family, who together with their boy, Georgie (Devon Gearhart) and their golden retriever, Lucky, are ready to spend a wonderful holiday at their big house on a lake.

The movie opens with the family on the road and even from the first sequence you will know that something very, very bad will happen to them in the next two hours. Anyway, the mystery of the movie is not its plot.

The incarnation of evil is represented by two young boys with perfect manners, dressed in sports clothes.

First to enter the scene is Peter (Brady Corbet), a neighbor who stops by to borrow some eggs. He is perfectly behaving himself, he is polite and distant, but there is something deeply disturbing about him. He wears a white pairs of gloves and he refuses to get out of the house. He is soon joined by his friend, Paul (Michael Pitt) and when George Farber is trying to get them out because his wife is scared, the hell breaks loose.

In the same calmly, polite and distant manner Paul smashes George’s knee and the family is taken hostage.

For the next two hours, Paul and Peter will abuse the family in an upward spiral of violence and any method to humiliate, scare and terrify the Farbers won’t be left aside.

“Funny Games” has all the classic ingredients of a horror movie: the beautiful woman, the helpless man, the scared child, the unbearable, pointless violence, the failed escape attempt. No one will get a chance to live and in the end the Farbers will be killed in the most atrocious manner.

The problem with “Funny Games” is that the movie fails to transmit its central idea, that today’s media is using the violence as entertainment. In the certain moments of the movie, Pitt is taking the camera as a witness in his unbearable violence against the Farbers, but his message is kind of fake. The two evil characters seem like two sad clowns, craving for our attention. Of course the violence, which mostly happens off-screen, is hard to watch, but at one point, if you are able to reach beyond the blood and the gore, you will realize the movie is just a lesson.

The movie intends to be a trigger for a debate, but it fails to ignite it when we find that the two boys seem to have read the script. Maybe if Haneke had the courage to cut off in his remake the scenes in which Paul is speaking to the audience, the movie would succeed to make its point. Otherwise it's just a horror, filmed in the manner of an art movie.

It deserves to be mentioned that the actors are doing their best to portray the characters. Naomi Watts, who also serves as the movie’s co-producer, deserves a special mention for her role. Also Michael Pitt is very believable as ruthless, but somehow disconnected.  Overall “Funny Games” is hard to watch because of its intense and sometimes gratuitous violence, but Henake’s filming techniques and his way to choosing certain angles to present some visual metaphors (like the broken egg which looks very disturbing and suggests what will follow) are interesting. Still, if you don’t feel ready for violence, go watch something else.