A part of me wants to dismiss Haneke’s near shot for shot remake outright, since the only difference I can muster between this second helping of terror and its original concerns the language being spoken (or the NASCAR playing on the television). Is there anything inherently American in the 2008 version that couldn’t be said about the 1997 original? Sure, the offscreen violence still overpowers and disturbs, but if you’ve already experienced this particular story, the end result is considerably less convincing a second time around. Maybe a repeat viewing is needed to explore the minute differences in execution (no pun intended).
MATCH CUTS 