TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
PROBLEM: " saving silverman " is a good example of a good comedy gone bad
.
as a love story it is good , however as a comedy
it falls flat on it 's face
.
i think throughout the short 90 minutes i laughed a total of seven times . . .
and those were just chuckles at the most !
the movie does n't have the oomph to make it a great movie , and does n't have the script to make it a funny movie .
wayne lefessier ( steven zahn ) ,
j .
d .
mcnugent
( jack black ) , and darren silverman ( jason biggs ) have grown up all their lives together , they have been best friends forever and vow to stay close till the end .
while in a bar after doing a show with their band , based on their love of neil diamond , darren meets a young woman named judith ( amanda peet ) whom he instantly falls for .
wayne and j .
d . however think differently and when judith tells darren that he can never see his friends again
, it 's up to wayne and
j . d . to try and begin saving silverman .
the performances are topnotch and
surprisingly , they are what keep the movie afloat .
jason biggs right off the flop " loser " does an ok job playing silverman , but he is stale and flat at times .
steve zahn is perfect in the role of wayne lefessier , and even though the movie is about silverman , lefessier is really the main character and the narrator of the movie itself .
jack black is well jack black , and he does an all right job as j .
d .
but he is n't as funny as he has been in the past .
amanda peet plays the ultimate bitch as judith , and neil diamond plays neil diamond ( he 's better at singing than acting ) .
anyway the performances in the film are good , but it 's too bad the script is n't .
speaking of script , hank nelkan 's choppy script is not only badly written , but not funny enough even for an episode of sesame street .
the trailer for the movie , as with most movies gives away everything that happens in the movie , especially the funniest parts .
somewhere " saving silverman " was meant to be a good movie , and it could have been , but alas in the end it was n't .
dennis dugan 's direction is all right , he adds a few directorial touches here
and there , nothing special being a simple comedy .
" saving silverman " is a perfectly bad movie in more ways than one .
it has a great cast , a good director and a sweet story .
. .
it 's just too bad
it has a bad script and is all together a bad movie .

SOLUTION: N

PROBLEM: synopsis : the president of a company wants to test his self - appointed successor , who 's psychotic , and thinks it 's a great idea to spend a week with him and their wives in an isolated cabin a hundred miles from civilization with no dependable transportation or means of communication after a heavy snowfall .
comments : tracks of a killer had a couple of strikes against it before i even began watching it .
strike one was the fact that someone had scrawled the word garbage on the videotape 's sticker in black marker
( not typically a good sign when you rent a film ) .
strike two came while the previews played .
did you ever get a sinking premonition about a movie 's quality ( or lack thereof ) while watching the trailers that come before it ?
well , the cheesy films being advertised before tracks of a killer were films that no one has ever heard of starring people no one knows , and they all looked bad ( definately not a good sign ) .
tracks of a killer itself completed the strikeout .
about the only positive thing this film had going for it was the fact that it sports some nice scenery .
to be fair , the first half - hour or so promises at least a watchable thriller .
wolf larson , who bears more than a passing resemblance to hugh grant , adequately plays the underling obviously set up as the killer of the film 's title .
james brolin and kelly lebrock seem equally adequate as the loving couple larson will later threaten .
brolin 's character , for some inexplicable reason , thinks its a great idea to spend some time in a cabin , practically isolated , with lebrock and larson , whom he 's decided to test for the week before giving him full control of his company .
by the time the characters arrive at the cabin , this film begins to become tedious .
apparently , brolin 's successor 's test involves chopping wood for the fireplace and skiing , which do n't seem like attributes necessary to run a business in the city .
but , then again , what do i know about business ?
i do think , though , that they should have invested in some better furniture for the cabin ; its beds and closets have a habit of just breaking at the slightest touch .
larson 's character accidently kills his own wife rather than the couple he wants to kill .
this leaves the movie with an hour to go and only three characters , which really is n't enough to sustain it .
the film 's writer must have taken a cue from stephen king , as scenes from tracks of a killer seem lifted out of misery and gerald 's game .
larson and lebrock fight and torture each other ( the tables get turned a couple of times ) while brolin tramps around in the snow looking for help .
some old guy 's around too
, just so the killer can add to his body count without killing the couple , who everyone knows will be alive at the end of the film .
the old guy , however , miraculously survives his first death and appears later to be killed again by the killer in a scene
so ludicrous it 's worthy of a chuckle or two
.
outside of that chuckle , unfortunately , tracks of a killer will just bore you as the obvious plot is drawn out ad infinitum and the actors , for some reason , become increasing obnoxious . if you 're in a video store and thinking about renting this turkey , do n't . make tracks to a far superior suspense film , like misery .

SOLUTION: N

PROBLEM: no matter what you suspect , this is n't your usual action thriller .
the usual suspects is an intelligent crime mystery story from up - and - coming director bryan singer .
it 's one of those movies that , after everything is revealed rapid - fire at the end , you immediately want to rewind and watch again because earlier scenes take on a new light .
plot twists
a - go - go are what you get here -- i gave up trying to figure out the mystery of keyser soze after awhile and just sat back and waited for them to reveal it to me .
keyser soze is a name you 'll hear at least a hundred times if you watch the usual suspects and for good reason .
it 's not only the name of the mysterious ( and possibly even mythical ) crime boss in the movie , it also sums up the movie -- " keyser soze " in latin means " an intelligent crime mystery story from up - and - coming director bryan singer .
"
or maybe i should n't have bought a foreign - language dictionary from the same company that makes those 99-cent encyclopedias sold in supermarkets .
at the movie 's opening , a group of known criminals are brought in for a police lineup , including mcmanus ( stephen baldwin ) , keaton ( gabriel byrne ) , fenster ( benicio del toro ) , buckney ( kevin pollack ) and verbal ( kevin spacey , winner of the best supporting actor academy award{symbol 153 \ f " times new roman " \ s 10 \ h } for his performance in the movie ) .
verbal is so - named because he frequently rambles on about anything or nothing .
he also earns his name as the movie 's narrator , spouting memorable lines like " the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did n't exist " ( although , obviously , he does exist -- what else could explain kris kross having a comeback in 1996 ? ) while being interrogated by police detective chazz palminteri ( any actor with multiple z 's in their name is okay in my book ) .
we see the story unfold as spacey retells it .
the five felons , upon being released from the lineup , get their revenge on the police by exposing a corrupt taxi service -- whereby elite criminals pay to be smuggled through town in cop cars -- and stealing all the money and drugs in the car .
it 's a definite case of male bonding for the five criminals , who later find out they were brought together by the unseen keyser soze , who sends a minion to them with an offer they ca n't refuse .
namely , they have to destroy soze 's main competitors in organized crime by infiltrating a ship , shooting a bunch of people , burning all the drugs and stealing $ 91 million cash .
spacey does a terrific job of bringing his seemingly unintelligent " cripple " character to life and baldwin , byrne , palminteri and the rest make for a good supporting cast .
the usual suspects is one of those movies that deftly mixes scenes of violence and explosions with an underlying sense of mystery and suspense , keeping the viewer guessing until the very end -- and then still leaving a few details open for scrutiny and discussion .
i suppose all that would be cleared up if i really had rewound the movie and watched it again instead of changing the channel and wondering in disbelief what the hell kris kross was doing on mtv .
a different mystery , i guess , which may turn into a _ murder _ mystery if that video ever comes on again . . .

SOLUTION:
P