The film “Blindness” portrays a world in which people who are blind are immoral savages who rape and kill before thinking twice.

Social commentary or not, the generalizations that are made throughout the course of the film are offensive. The relation of the apocalypse to not being able to see ultimately veers the film off course from an intelligent, mood-setting thriller to a dark and implausible lecture on mankind.

In the film, Doctor, Mark Ruffalo gets infected with a virus that makes the characters go blind - it’s like swimming in a sea of milk, one character says.

The government immediately quarantines the infected, along with Doctor and his wife, Julianne Moore, who seems to be the only person immune to the virus. As more people start becoming infected, more chaos erupts with little-to-no order inside the quarantined zone.

No character in the film is ever referred to by their first name. In fact, IMDB.com lists the characters only as Doctor or First Blind Man.

Every actor, aside from Moore, plays a person who goes blind. Unfortunately, seeing Juliard acting students “act blind” is one of the more painful things to watch this year; and I’ve seen “Meet The Spartans.”

There were several parts where blindness actually was the punchline of a joke, intentional or not, which took attention away from the atmospheric vibe of the film.

Director Fernando Meirelles, who helmed the great “City of God,” does a fairly good job at setting the overall tone of the film with plenty of white dissolve shots and intelligent directing. But the film suffers from becoming too indulgent after the climax.

For the first half of the film, we get a somewhat believable story of the quarantined people along with character development and rich dialogue.

But once the story moves toward its idiotic and dragging ending, “Blindness” becomes a post-apocalyptic tale that has been recycled since the dawn of time.

I left “Blindness” and pontificated on what an overall bizzare movie it is, which is the only word that can do it justice.

Cut out the last 30 minutes, the vicious rape scenes and the eyepatch that Danny Glover wears, and you’ll get a much more efficient film.

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