As much as I love Christopher Nolan's work, I always thought Following was a pretty average debut feature. It has a cool twist and the style of it shows a lot of potential (kind of like Fincher's Alien 3), but it never really stayed with me, and it kind of seems to be more known now that Nolan is such a powerhouse in the Hollywood circuit.
It could be argued though that Pi is also riding on the coattails of Aronofsky's later material, and that could be true, but I also think it's a very enjoyable little film filmed in a very unique manner. The story did kind of take a bit of a weird twist with the Wall Street firm mafia fighting the Hasidic Jew secret society, but with Max being an unreliable narrator it's plausible that it was all in his mind, or severely exaggerated as a part of his paranoia. I really loved all the references to the ancient Chinese game Go too, mostly because it's such a simple game that is so insanely complicated.
I'm going to have to give this one to Pi because it has a lot more going for it on its own besides the fact that it's the debut feature of a visionary director who gained fame later on in their future. It's got a killer soundtrack too.
Pi - 1
Following - 0
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