empathielabs/imbd_dataset_v0 huggingface dataset:
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Aksar is an awful movie. The script, the story, the acting are all simply laughable. Dino Morea plays a man who pays Emraan Hashmi to seduce his wife. Yes, this is as ridiculous as it sounds. Both Morea and Hashmi offer incredibly and unsurprisingly bad acting. Udita Goswami plays the aggressive, capricious and angry wife. She is good-looking but has zero acting talent. The film has one hit song called "Jhalak Diklaja" which is composed and sung by Himesh Reshammiya. I never could understand the hype around this song as I never found it particularly good though it is catchy. The film is supposed to be a thriller but instead it just looks like a comic strip thanks to the terrible direction and writing. Avoid this cheapo at any cost.


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Emraan Hashmi post MURDER did some good roles in Bhatt films but other director just made use of his kissing and naughty image
AKSAR is one of them and it came after AAA, JAWANI DIWANI in a row and I was already fed up of him and such roles
The film has a nice twist at the start i felt like an Abbas Mustan film but then it turns into a routine film with sudden love, sudden jealousy and a bad climax
Anant Mahadevan makes a terrible film Music is saving grace Camera-work is fabulous
Emraan Hashmi just repeats his act of his earlier films and has 2 expressions throughout Dino looks stiff, talks as if he is practicing Hindi and does okay in some scenes Udita is expressionless and irritates


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weak direction, weak plot, unimpressive music, i wonder why Udita Goswami is there in the movie world in the first place ? she tried to reveal a lot of her talent (mostly skin) but failed to impress.
music wasn't that impressive as well, only one song "Jhalak Dikhlajaa" was worth listening to.....
Aksar, the title ? well they tried to justify the title of the movie in the end, but it didn't make sense..
there were many unwanted twists and turns in the story, which made it more boring. however if someone's a Dino Morea fan, please go ahead and watch it.


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Independent film that would make Hollywood proud. The movie substitutes good looks for good acting, a cryptic plot for a good story line, and self-absorption for character development. May be I missed something, go see it for yourself.


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This film is a third rate attempt at a compelling, moody thriller and fails miserably on all three counts. It just about managed to keep my attention as the protagonist was seen slowly and predictably breaking all the life rules he had conveniently set himself at the beginning of the film.
But it's in the last 25 minutes or so that things really start to spiral. A vaguely plausible plotline (and that's being generous)becomes completely rediculous as suddenly new characters appear from nowhere and random and bizzarre events are never explained.
This wouldn't be quite so bad if the scripting wasn't so cheesy, the acting so wooden (despite a strong British cast) and the direction so uninspiring. This is not an example of good British film making nor indeed should it make Tarantino bat an eyelid, at least not in comparison to his earlier work.
My advice in this case, if it's hard to get hold of, don't waste the effort. If you're a Brit like me and it's in your local video shop, steer well clear. Perhaps head to the video entitled "American Beauty" - now that's an example of great British direction.


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[Warning contains spoilers]
I felt no sympathy for any of the characters, incl the main one, who gets over the death of his girl friend v.quickly, (but it's OK as he shacks up with an ex prostitute from the casino he works at). The main character is portrayed as this wonderful intelligent writer who gets drawn into a web of deception, all the while there is running his monologue of the book he is writing. I can't say I would buy the book, a much better premise perhaps would have been if the voice-over (which annoyingly cuts in to narrate any bit of the film that you might not have understood, via his book) would've had 52 different personailties... to represent each card in the deck, but I digress. In the end there was a twist, whereby the main character has been setup by someone close to him, but as I disliked his character so much by this point (I found it impossible to like anyone in this film, the characters are all one dimensional zombies) that I really didn't care, and was glad the film was over.
Plus points: The English actress from ER doing a dodgy south african accent Minus points: An irritating film


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This was one of the most contrived, tedious and clichéd films I have ever seen... and, yes, I've seen Pearl Harbour. Even the likes of Gina McKee couldn't act their way out of the appalling dialogue. It has been described as 'art-house', this can only be a euphemism for dull, dreadful and, quite frankly, artless. Why is it that when a film is devoid of plot, critics feel it deserves to be called art? But far more baffling, why did America love it? Without you, this film would have remained on the shelf where, perhaps, it belonged.


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I respect Mike Hodges, and liked Get Carter immensely for it's bleak outlook, but The Croupier just seems like a particularly dull ITV drama.
The reserved, cold acting isn't just the preserve of the lead character, it's spread to the entire cast, meaning there is nothing to contrast Owen's character with.
None of the characters evoke any kind of feelings at all, except boredom. The ending of the film is also untidy at best.
The camera work etc is fairly good, but if you want to see Hodges best watch Get Carter, don't bother with this uninteresting, unimaginative trawl through emotions he covered better 20+ years ago


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This low-budget film about a writer who goes to work in a London casino has an awful script, wooden performances, and not much to recommend it. Of course it will appeal to highbrows for whom "mainstream" is a curse word, and who automatically add 20 IQ points when they hear a British accent (apologies to Jeff Foxworthy).
The script is full of holes (has he written a book yet, or not?), cliches (relationship trouble: she works days, he works nights), and provides so little insight into such basics as character motivation that it requires a voice-over narration just to move the story along.
In an attempt to keep the audience from dozing off, it includes a street fight scene that is about as realistic as a high school production of Julius Caesar.
If your idea of scintillating dialogue is "I'll see your ten, and raise you twenty", then RUN to see this movie. Otherwise, save your money.



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Hideously bad movie purportedly about a croupier who wants to be a writer and the incidents that make up casino life. Moves at a snail's pace. Dull, dull, dull! Virtually everything about this movie is amateurish and unconvincing - with one very notable exception: the performance of Clive Owen, who is like a Rolls Royce purring through a slum. Advice for the casino sequences were allegedly provided by a professional but judging by the way in which they are handled they were completely ignored by the director. While casino staff may very well be a different breed to the rest of the world they are nowhere near as witless and booooring as the characters presented in this script. Odds and ends are thrown into the script in an attempt to provide it with convincing background but would appear to have been jotted down in a list on a cocktail napkin. For anyone who makes a living in the casino business (as this writer has for the last FORTY years!) this is a poverty stricken depiction of their world which even in the farthest and most obscure reaches of England has NEVER been this wanting! An appalling, insulting mess of a movie that plods and plods and plods along to an idiotic and unconvincing ending. American critics loved it.


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Inspired by a true story tale is full of 1970's feeling but is disjointed in the telling. This is the tale of a black college swimmer who ends up in Phillie at a closing rec center in a bad neighborhood and somehow puts together a swim team. The film staggers around blindly for the first half hour until Terrence Howard, as our hero, gets the kids into the pool.It picks up at that point by becoming somewhat engaging, though it still staggers about. There is a good story in this and its clear why Howard and Bernie Mac took part in it, but the script is poor and most of the direction seems intent on making it feel like 197something instead of making us feel anything for the story.
Not the disaster that some reviews made it out to be, it instead suffers by all of the recent sport true stories-Coach Carter, Invincible, Glory Road, etc, which at least knew that you have to at least work with the story to make a movie as opposed to just letting the audience suffer because "its true".


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It's a shame Barry Humphries infamous Sir Les Patterson character had it's film debut in this under cooked spy/comedy.
This film reminded me of the Beatty/Hoffman stinker, Ishtar (1987). Humphries should have learned from the mistakes that film made - if your going to change gears on a concept DON'T USE SPIES! Like Ishtar, the first 20 minutes or so offer a promise of something different. It would have been great to see the anachronistic and boorish Patterson sleazing around in the world of Australian politics. One of characters even point out that Patterson is of date with the current times - you'd think Humphires could of had a field day making commentary on the Hawke government (I can just picture a scene with Patterson and Hawkie in a drinking contest). But instead of a film that might of been clever and even a biting look into that world, we get Patterson running around the world as James Bond trying to save the world from bio-chemical weapons that runs out of steam before the half way mark.
Disappointing.


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The brilliant Australian comic genius Barry Humphries had a rare failure with this uneven, and occasionally distasteful comedy, which was snatched back from release after only a few days. Drunken, lecherous Australian diplomat Sir Les Patterson accidentally sets an Arab potentate on fire at the UN and is posted to his tiny country as punishment, arriving just as a palace coup puts a new leader (American soap star Thaao Penghlis) on the throne. Sir Les, with the reluctant help of Dame Edna Everage (Both played by Humphries) almost accidentally foils a scheme by the new leader to release a deadly, disgusting, AIDS-like virus on the Western World. Joan Rivers has a cameo as the female President of the United States, her desk plate reading "President Rivers"! Extreme bad taste mingles with slapstick and Humphries' usual scathing satire in a film which is more enjoyable in it's many funny parts, than taken together as a whole. Dame Edna's TV fans may be puzzled by the presence of a different Madge Allsop, sadly, one who lacks Emily Perry's wonderful drab comedy magic in the role. The film was written By Humphries & his third wife, Diane Millstead, and directed by the Mad Max man himself, George Miller. For die-hard Humphries fans like myself, essential. All others, beware.


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Arguably the most disgusting thing to come out of Australia since Vegemite... Predictably distasteful comedy with Barry Humphries in a dual role as boozy Australian diplomat Les Patterson and undercover agent Dame Edna! So many bodily function gags that even the Farrelly brothers would have been sick, and several gross-out moments, especially the effects of the horrible H.E.L.P. virus. Only for fans of extreme toilet humor. Oh, and that´s the "NeverEnding Story II", NOT the "Mad Max" George Miller, who directed... *½



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When one considers that Carson McCullers is one of the foremost literary figures of the 20th century, it seems that it needs a very great lack of talent to be able to ruin one of her stories, but this movie shows it can be done! How do actors ingratiate their way to becoming directors? Wooden, unatmospheric, unsympathetic, totally out of sync with the poetic compassion of McCullers' writing, my jaw dropped with horror and disbelief that such a mish-mash of a movie could ever have found finance and backers. The only redeeming features are some moderately good acting, (although that said, Vanessa Redgrave seems to permanently render much the same performance whatever character she plays), and some good cinematography in places, but otherwise it is a bitter, bitter disappointment, and it could, and indeed should, have been a contemporary masterpiece. Simon Callow should hang his head in shame and stick to acting!


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How do you make a totally unappealing movie out of a story by one of America's most famous authors? Watch this film and find out. Maybe I am overrating author Carson McCullers, but I was impressed by "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter" and was hoping for something memorable here, too. Forget it.
Vanessa Redgrave looks like a man with her short haircut and clothing. I never found her much to get excited about in almost any movie, anyway. Rod Steiger as a preacher? How insulting is that? Unlikable characters, one after the other. Well, maybe that's the book, too, and I am being unfair to this film. I am not familiar with the story other than what I saw on screen and this was so unappealing a movie that I could never recommend it to anyone.
It's just one backwards person after another in a backward town. Outside of some nice cinematography here and there, there is nothing to recommend. How anyone could sit through 100 minutes of this is amazing.
I didn't even go into how bad this is directed. There is good news: this was the only film Simon Cowell directed.


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This movie was ridiculous from the start. Let me save you all time from watching this movie. A woman who sells corn liquor to the locals takes in her cousin or nephew and he convinces her to open a café downstairs from her home. She does and she and the cousin become close. There is a scene later where she is locking lips with him. Later, the woman finds out an old boyfriend is coming back from jail and its tense between them, leading to a down and out fist fight in the café. The woman's cousin/nephew is enamored by the man. The ending was awful, the story was awful, and if I could get back the time wasted on this movie, I would appreciate it. A definite skip.


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I have to say this, this is the first movie I'm reviewing on here I didn't finish watching. I mean.. I COULDN"T CONTINUE! No matter how adamant I am for watching things until the bitter end, 'The Ballad Of The Sad Café' proved no match to this viewer. Vanessa Redgrave stars as the Strange Woman in Town who does things like walk through the river with a full set of clothes on. Anyways,. A long lost relative comes to visit, he's a midget and well, that's as far as I got. What the heck was the point of all of this? I didn't even bother to wait for Michael Carradine to come on, as I was already pummeled senseless by the combination of the slow script AND having to deal with a midget in a dramatic role. I call this coffee table cinema. The type of cinema that appeals to just a scant few of you, but the others just STAY AWAY.


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Looking and sounding like a cheap porno without the sex, this is the first in an impressive string of stinkers from producer (or in this case director) Geoffrey Reeve.
And it's a doozy. Laughable on just about every level.
Some government agents (I think) are "professionally murdered" in Amsterdam and a considerably less-than-charismatic, block-of-wood Interpol agent (who I assure you is not named Louis Salinger) is sent in to investigate by walking around a lot to ensure the tax-dodge financiers get their money's worth for the plane tickets to shoot on location.
The wannabe-hard-hitting attitudes to drugs and depiction of prostitution must have looked laughably outdated even before the celluloid dried, but the script at least is very obliging in that it explains exactly what's happening regularly in horribly contrived direlogue ("Were you followed? Oh no of course not. No one outside Washington even knows you're here!") yet despite this the plot somehow remains confusing. By the time a sinister Vladimir Putin lookalike Priest (no less than Kronsteen from From Russia with Love) swaggers up to his pulpit to deliver a sermon your brain will have switched off, which is unfortunate because you'll miss our hero - pinned to the ground during a fight - struggling to reach for a plank of wood only to later realise he is in fact sitting on a loaded pistol, and him shouting "You bastaaaard!" at his friend's murdered corpse, and the leather-bound, moustachioed go-go boys, the morris dancing and the hilarious torture sequence - all of which provide ample laughs. Only the climactic boat chase impresses. It's an exciting, well-directed sequence that really has no place in this movie. Such a glaring anomaly is explained when the credits roll - Reeve had nothing to do with that sequence! Thankfully everything goes back to business as usual for the ridiculous, spit-out-your-drink twist and warehouse shootout.
Unless such a wretched thing as a Geoffrey Reeve completist exists - and you're one of them - I wouldn't bother with this instantly forgettable nonsense.


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Storyline drags. Drug smugglers a Beautiful women and a determined cop. Nothing not already done a hundred times before. The boat sceen will be well worth the wait Amsterdam is the perfect city to pull it off. The canals and waterways put you on the edge of your seat. I would say the same as did the car chase in Bullitt, very intense!.


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Ruggero Deodato is often credited for inventing the cannibal subgenre with JUNGLE HOLOCAUST in 1975. But director Umberto Lenzi, usually acknowledged as a Deodato rip-off, directed THE MAN FROM DEEP RIVER 3 years earlier in 1972. Is it a worthy start for the genre? Well....not really.....
A photographer accidentally kills a man in self-defense and while retreating into the jungles of an Asian country, is captured by a native tribe who hold him captive, force him into slave labor, and eventually accept him when he marries the chief's daughter. Throughout the whole film, I never felt this was a horror film. It was more reminiscent of a drama, like A MAN CALLED HORSE, which I liked better. Ivan Rassimov is pretty good as the photographer, but it is Me Me Lai as the chief's daughter who is memorable and great. I have always been a Me Me Lai fan ever since her breathtaking performance in JUNGLE HOLOCAUST and she is never given credit for her acting chops because she hardly speaks in her films. She is still very talented and charming. Lots of real animal mutilation is the one thing about DEEP RIVER that could make it a horror film, but even that doesn't execute well.
THE MAN FROM DEEP RIVER is good to see for those who want to see what started the cannibal subgenre, but as an entry in the genre, is easily eclipsed by Deodato's entries and even Lenzi's own later entries. Recommended only for completists and Me Me Lai fans.


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No shortage of female flesh but still not interesting! Lenzi at least is capable of so far greater probably peaking at Spasmo and starting with Kiss Me Kill Me
The Hard Gore R2 DVD release may be cut at 86 minutes, but this movie contains one act of cannibalism and one victim - a scene with a native girl who is brutalised and disembowelled by the cannibal tribe we are warned of and who later set fire to some huts. Arsonist Holocaust? Firestarter Fernox anyone?
Certainly not a cannibal flick but was there ever a decent one made? Avoid.


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I purchased this one for a couple of dollars at the local video store, as they cleared out their tapes in favour of DVDs. I doubt they'll be replacing this one, somehow.
I couldn't say that it's one of the worst movies I've ever seen, but it's very dull. No real cannibal scenes. Me Me Lai is not naked enough of the time (only about 4 or 5 times). And she's not the Thai goddess that I expected, either. So two of my reasons for watching this movie were knocked out.
There is some severe animal violence here for those that enjoy that sort of thing. A great fight between a mongoose and a large snake gets quite bloody. Animal torture, as well, some of which is real and some fake. Thankfully the fake is somewhat funny, but the real is just a little sickening.
Generally speaking, it's a 70s film - overly long, under-developed, not as deep as it would have liked to have been. But it's something different, right? ONE AND A HALF STARS!


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From the late teens to the 1920s, Stan Laurel was a solo act in films. During this time period, Laurel was definitely NOT among the upper echelons of talent and his humor isn't nearly as good as contemporaries such as Lloyd or Keaton. However, for second-tier short comedies, he did create a decent niche. As far as the quality of the films go, they varied wildly. Some, such as DR. PYCKLE AND MR. PRYDE, were terrific, whereas most were of average to below average in quality.
FROZEN HEARTS is an odd film. Like many of the films he made for Hal Roach and distributed by Pathé during this period, the costumes were absolutely first-rate and the film looked very nice. However, despite this and having support from the likes of James Finlayson, one thing they forgot to include in this film was humor. None of the jokes seem to work and the film looks almost like a drama, not a comedy. Only the really silly intertitle cards betray the type film it's supposed to be.
My advice is try to see all his Laurel and Hardy films and then see the solo films. In addition to DR. PYCKLE, try seeing THE SOILERS and MUD AND SAND--two of his more tolerable solo shorts.


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I am testing myself to watch 3 bad movies in a row to find out if watching 3 bad movies in a row could give me amnesia I have a dubbed to English version of this movie. Now let me go down the points Music Score: bad quality but at least it suits Story: it's about a guy who goes to a town and he meets his sheriff brother and they fight for farmers land from a major and he allies with mexicans to drive them out and Trinity and his brother try to teach them to defend it - The final climatic fight scene will confuse anyone about who the #### are the good guys Conclusion: better than I thought but I need to continue with this I am next going to watch the Dolph Lungren and Jean-Claudde Vanne Damme movie "Universal Soldier" pray for my sanity


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Very interesting to find another reviewer who had the exact same reaction to this movie as I did: It was a heck of a lot better when I was 10 or 11 years old.
Seeing it more than 30 years later, it's still okay, but it only mildly held my interest. What seemed hugely funny back then was only mildly amusing.
Also, things that were astonishing to me as a 10-year-old came across as just silly. For example, in one scene Trinity is walking along and fires his revolver behind him and kills two men without even looking. In fact, he doesn't even bother to look and see if they're dead, because he knows he hit the mark. Um, yeah, right.
In addition, a lot of the dialogue sounds quite wooden. Sorry, but 35 years later, it hasn't really aged that well.
Although it's been a long time since I've seen that one as well, probably a better Terrence Hill film than this one would be My Name Is Nobody.


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This movie is overrated, to say the least. It's not good as a comedy, and it's not good as a "serious" film either. The pacing is far too plodding for the former, and there is too much lame slapstick for the latter. The only laughs come from some of Bud Spencer's reaction shots when he becomes exasperated by his brother's behavior. The dubbing is excellent but the full-screen framing is appalling. (*1/2)


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I saw Bogard when it was released in the 70s. It was one of those pictures that received an X rating for violence. We snuck into our local grindhouse, and saw it anyway. Pretty good picture. Lots of blood from the street fights, although the cheap sound effects for the punches took something away from it. And lots of sex. I remember one of the early scenes when Bogard meets this pretty brunette in an apartment she is showing him. Without saying a word, he picks her up, puts her in the windowsill and nails her. From what I remember the picture sailed from that point on. So, when I found out Bogart is also called Black Fist and was available on VHS, I ordered it online. I was very disappointed. Black Fist is Bogard edited for television. So many of the scenes I remember were missing, I wondered if indeed, this was the same picture.


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I got this movie in a bargain bin, hoping for an amusingly bad flick. Boy was I disappointed. (except for avon.) You see, the movie is indeed horrible, but so horrible, it isn't even laughable. The plot, oh wait, there is no plot. I suppose you could say it's about the main character rising up in the ranks of street fighting. At the end of the movie, the directors decided to either not make any more sense, or, more likely, died and had a monkey finish directing the movie. DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T WANT THE ENDING SPOILED! although the ending doesn't really spoil anything. The main character somehow ends up in a room filled with mirrors, a la Enter The Dragon, and then gets real angry, has stupid flashback, and hits a mirror. The end. Wheeee.
The only redeeming factor of this movie was Avon's scene. He's talking to the rival street fighting boss and says something along these lines, completely deadpan: "Do not worry about him anymore sir. I have killed him in a sophisticated manner. I wined him, I dined hm, we went to a disco. We was havin a lot of fun. And then I killed him." at which point the boss says "good work avon. You're number 1." And avon says "Number 1! Alllriiiiight! Alriiight!" The scene continues with avon continuing to say "alllrriiiight!" over and over. The next scene is of a dead Avon floating in a pool. Intelligent? I think not.
Lastly, I own the "Homeboy" version of this movie, meaning the title on the box I own is "Homeboy." It shows a huge guy holding a giant gun and screaming. This never happens in the movie. This man is never in the movie. High quality.
Note--I am new to this reviewing, but hell yes I am going to keep it up.


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This is a really mediocre film in the vein of "Buckaroo Banzai." The cast runs around like "Mad Max" wannabes, and they seem to be sharing a joke that they do not want to share with the audience. Wheeler-Nicholson is one of the those guilty pleasure actresses you are delighted to stumble across in films, but she isn't worth the price of rental. Space Maggot starts an electrical fire, and burns a vote of 4.


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After seeing this film, I did not want my money back. I wanted my TIME back. I wanted that hour and a half back in my life - it was the most amazing, hideous torture to know that I had squandered precious minutes of my life on this dreck. I am scarred for life, and ever since this "film" entered my life I have had trouble sleeping. I am trying to suppress the memories, really I am. . . but they make me want to burn things.



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Where do I start. Lets list the good things about this movie first.
1. Mikael Persbrandt is great as the Gangster Thomas. This is the only character you will actually care about, and he's a bad guy! (allthogh never does anything bad, and is generally a pretty likable guy) 2. Kjell Bergkvist is always great. He's a bit toned down here, but he is quite funny still 3. The movie looked pretty good by Swedish standards, good use of depth of field and lights.
Now the bad. This is by far the worst script to make it into the big screen ever. The acting by everyone else was pretty bad and over the top. The direction was horrible. A totally meaningless story, totally unrealistic characters and events and 1.5 hours to long. During emotional scenes pretty much everyone in the theater laughed. People just started walking out during the course of the screening.
There's no way to actually summarize the story into something coherent, so I wont even try. Every cliché ever conceived is in there, and in all the wrong places. I'm sorry to say this is one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my entire life.
Watch it for a good laugh, but try not to pay any money for it ;)
.R


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This movie features several well known actors which I usually like, so I had at least modest expectations when I rented this on DVD. I was highly disappointed. In fact I walked off for some snacks somewhere during the last half hour and somehow I ended up in the kitchen rather then going back to the TV. The actor performances where poor pretty much all across the board and none of the atmospheres in the movie felt very convincing. Virtually all scenes had that "just a movie" feeling to them, I just sat there waiting to hear the director calling "CUT!" followed by the crew having a little chat about the scene before moving on to the next.
Since the movie is about gangsters most characters are tough and mob-like, the problem here is just that this whole bad-boy attitude is played out so poorly that it just feels like a joke. The constant guitar-drilling soundtrack really tries to emphasize this atmosphere too, but when the same track is played the 18th time it just adds to the already strong feeling of the whole thing just being fake.
Maybe it was just a really really bad script, maybe it was just poorly executed. I'm no movie critic, in fact I consider it rare to see something that's REALLY good, but this was just plain bad no matter how objective and forgiving I'm trying to be. NOT recommended, not even as a rental!


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This movie is not worth seeing, at least not at a cinema. The story is hard to follow and understand (it starts with 10 minutes of something happening 3 years earlier). It's hard to know if this movie is trying to be a comedy or just is so bad/weird that it sometimes seems like it. American sirens and lights on Swedish police cars is just one example. The acting of Persbrandt and Bergqvist is good as usual, but I think Jenny Lampa acting as Jasmin acts very poor. Zara Zetterqvist acts pretty well, she's not been seen as an actor in Swedish movies for a long time. If you still want to see it, wait until it's released on DVD or is shown on TV.


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I just saw this on a local independent station in the New York City area. The cast showed promise but when I saw the director, George Cosmotos, I became suspicious. And sure enough, it was every bit as bad, every bit as pointless and stupid as every George Cosmotos movie I ever saw. He's like a stupid man's Michael Bey--with all the awfulness that accolade promises.
There's no point to the conspiracy, no burning issues that urge the conspirators on. We are left to ourselves to connect the dots from one bit of graffiti on various walls in the film to the next. Thus, the current budget crisis, the war in Iraq, Islamic extremism, the fate of social security, 47 million Americans without health care, stagnating wages, and the death of the middle class are all subsumed by the sheer terror of graffiti.
A truly, stunningly idiotic film.


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MST3K fodder. It's so bad it's actually worth seeing just for that reason. There are some hilarious things in it, such as the mysterious device the bad guy is seen working on for the whole movie, that turns out to be this tiny helicopter that flutters around carrying and firing a machine gun without so much as a wobble, but is brought down by a bag of balloons (the kind they release at political conventions). Many other wonderful touches of that sort. Stars Charlie Sheen. There's one scene where he spends five minutes recording a conversation, only to drop the microcassette in the Potomac River by accident. If they'd cast Emilio Estevez in the part that never would've happened.


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They make everything too easy in this film. It sort of reminded me of Indiana Jones where he hides on the outside of a submarine during an ocean crossing. Everybody knows everything that's going on, it's just real easy to get anyplace you want in the White House. I don't even know why I watched half of it. Because I like Charlie Sheen and Donald Sutherland. I expect the usual ability to dodge bullets from every angle, and be able to run faster than a motorcycle (usually it's faster than a car in a garage or a allyway). It was silly, mostly, and I didn't even know then had a ten-story elevator in the White House. Anyway, anything conspiratorial is always interesting.


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1st watched 2/25/2002 - 4 out of 10(Dir-George P. Cosmatos): Predictable action thriller where any frequent movie goer could guess what was coming next. Charlie Sheen is the good old boy to the President who just happens to be not liked by the rest of the presidential staff. Of course, he gets involved in a situation where he's framed over and over again and he has one friend in the White House, played by Sutherland, who naturally doesn't stay that way for very long. His other friend is a reporter played by Linda Hamilton(who has very little to do or say in this meaningless role), and of course his biggest and bestest friend is the President himself(Sam Waterston) who stays his pal till the end despite everyone else being killed around him. Brainless yet action-packed meaningless trife despite loads and loads of acting talent(all pretty much wasted.)


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This movie is filled with so many idiotic moments, that you wonder how it ever got made. For example, they get into the sewers from the Capitol and while they're in the sewers you can see signs pointing to various government buildings, and then they come up in the middle of the street! I highly doubt that government buildings would provide public access through the city sewer system. Anyways, I gave this a 2 instead of a 1 just because of its comic value. I laughed the whole way through at the idiocy of everyone involved in this movie.


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This film is bad. It's filled with glaring plot holes, characters who are ruled by stupidity, bad acting and above all, a poor script which has been done before in many, many films, only better. I feel sorry for Donald Sutherland, I just hope he had to do this film rather than wanted to! Miss it.


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My Take: Routine political thriller with mediocre action scenes and predictable twists.
A rarely seen political thriller, which made a very poor box-office response, I managed to catch THE SHADOW CONSPIRACY on TV just now, and while I was glad that I satisfied my curiosity to see this rare film, I didn't exactly feel this film was all special. Considering the box-office response to it, SHADOW CONSPIRACY is not all quite as bad as critics and the public reacted to it, but still ain't very good to begin with and everything, from script to direction, is pretty predictable. Charlie Sheen plays the presidential assistant who finds himself caught up with assassins and chases (a lot of them) when he discovers a deadly conspiracy which lurks amongst the White House staff. After a professor is murdered, Sheen aids the help of ex-flame reporter Amanda Givens (Linda Hamilton) to uncover the traitor and unlock the conspiracy of the title.
But this script, written by Adi Hasak & Ric Gibbs, are pedestrian as they come, not much differing from other White House conspiracy thrillers as in ABSOLUTE POWER and MURDER AT 1600. Some considerable talents (Donald Sutherland, Ben Gazzara and Stephen Lang) try their best on a routine script, but rarely saves it from predictability of the script. Not to mention a ludicrous scene which involves a toy helicopter, which seems far too silly and out-of-place in this "serious" political thriller. THE SHADOW CONSPIRACY has its moments I'm sure, some of which are much to under-appreciated (director George Pan Cosmatos serves up some decent chase scenes), but none of which lifts this routine thriller of which there's not much payoff or surprises.
Rating: ** out of 5.


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This all looked quite promising. An up-and-coming Presidential adviser is framed for a series of murders, as he has been tipped off that a conspiracy is going on within the White House. It stars the excellent Donald Sutherland among several capable actors. Yet very few people have a good word to say about it.
The whole thing really needed some depth. You can pick up the idea that the President is being too left-wing with his ideas, and some within the Government want him dead to stop those ideas being carried out. Conrad appears to simply want the country to be Governed his way, rather than the way of the elected leader.
However, the action scenes had a few logic holes - the sewers and elevators already mentioned, and the rather haphazard assassination method - and Linda Hamilton's character is completely uninspired. Her 'the President's my Father' 'diversion' was ludicrous - that would make the President about 10 when that happened. Worse still was her predictable final scene with Bishop.
They could have made a challenging, inventive political thriller, but either bottled it or failed. They could've gone to town on special effects, but the good ones were wasted. They could have achieved so much more in general. This was barely worth the £1 it cost me.


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This film starts with a pedestrian setup before blundering into the standard sort of suspense action where an office worker keeps beating up trained secret service men etc.
I couldn't say the acting was bad - there were some good "surprised" faces by Hamilton and Sheen - but then I really wouldn't have to.
Risible finale did at least give me a good laugh for my pains. Still, if my life was flashing before my eyes, I think I would fast forward this 90 minutes.
I have to write two more lines of text just to get this thing published. Yes, very resistant suit that sheen wears. I made a special promise to myself never to watch a film this bad again.


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I still wonder why I sat through this entire thing. It only had about 3 minutes of actual entertainment, the rest of it was just a total bore. The acting isn't that great and the action scenes are soooo cheesy it's not even funny. I kinda wish I could say something good about this film but I can't think of anything right now. There probably was somethings in it some can enjoy but the ending of it is gotta be the dumbest idea ever. What type of person would get a little toy remote controlled helicopter with a burned in machine gun in it to assassinate the President? This idea could have never been done in the first place let alone have anyone dumb enough to try it, I guess the writer must have been to obsessed with the toy car scene in The Dead Pool but actually tried to make this look serious.


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Rarely have I seen an action/suspense movie that was so boring. None of the action scenes are exciting the story line is nothing special and except for a couple of actors the acting is bad. Charlie Sheen (Platoon, Major League) stars as the White House Chief of Staff, who gets himself in the middle of a conspiracy that wants him and more people dead. Donald Sutherland (A Time to Kill, Fallen) plays a friend who he tells everything he can and Linda Hamilton (Linda Hamilton, Terminator, Dante's Peak) plays a reporter who gets involved in the situation. Charlie Sheen is OK as the star, Donald Sutherland is a good actor who gives a good performance. Linda Hamilton gives a poor performance. With a bad movie, I can actually like it if it has a good ending, but this movie has a very cheesy ending with some almost laughable stuff.


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After watching this movie, I felt as if I had just eaten a box of stale, chewy cracker jack only to find no prize inside. This movie has real promise: porn stars in a skinemax feature! Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell the producers that WE LIKE SOME T&A IN OUR T & A FLICKS!!! Sure, we get a few quick flashes and a couple of "bathing in the creek" scenes. But where's the sex? How can you have four girls, "sorority girls" no less, in this type of movie with only one, pitiful 5 second lesbian scene? Good night, USA Up All Night provides more titillation! Look, we don't watch this type of movie for great cinematography, screenwriting or action. We want to see some kink! What a letdown.


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Bare Wench is another softcore parody of the Blair Witch project (I think there's about two dozen of those things out there). It has 5 very attractive women (which includes Nikki Fritz, Julie Smith, and Julie Strain), and one dorky guy whose only purpose is to provide comic relief.
Okay, so I'm thinking "Cool. Great looking women, having softcore lesbian sex with each other very 10 minutes or so. This should be real good."
Unfortunately, the producers blew it. There is nothing in this video that actually qualifies as a sex scene. There's a couple of false starts, but the majority of the action is just the women posing for the camera. I guess once the producers had spent their money on the women, and spent more getting them to remove their clothes, they didn't have any money left to get them to actually do anything. And I guess they also used up all their alloted nudity time too early, because towards the end of the video, there is a huge amount of pointless dialogue that is obviously being used for no other reason than to pad out the run time. "You're a liar! No you are! You go into the cave! No you go! I think we should go home! Well, I don't!" This goes on and on and on forever.
There's way better stuff than this.


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