Well, it is a Monogram quickie from the dreaded period of the '40s when poverty row studios put out a good many "horror" films that are almost unimaginably dull... So I was expecting the worst.

The story concerns a doctor who has been working on a way to restore life to the dead through the use of a room full of non-utilitarian electrical devices which spark nicely. There is a dog's heart hanging under a bell jar and twitching fitfully, which we are informed is proof that his method is perfected.

A brief discussion of the metaphysical implications and mention of an important plot point precede the inevitable death of a young man who is revived in a rather undramatic sequence - undramatic even with the sparks. The important plot point is that a convicted murderer is being executed just at midnight, which turns out to be exactly when the young man is revived. It is no surprise that the young man is very different after his experience; apparently amnesiac and with a strange desire to visit the haunts of the underworld and become acquainted with certain gangsters...

It's hard to explain why this all is not completely unwatchable, but perhaps it suffices to say that it's mildly interesting and contains several murders and a couple of interesting characters. Towards the end it even begins to move along with a bit of real tension and a confrontation that is downright Hitchcockian. SPOILER

I have to warn of a very, very bad ending. A tagged on unnecessary, pain in the ass sorta ending. After the plot resolves rather effectively...

You know the sort of thing... It's all a dream. Never happened.


I've been watching a lot of Asian horror movies lately, but this one has to be the worst so far. It started out interestingly enough, but lost momentum after the first 15 minutes of the movie. The added "drama" scenes, flashback sequences and serious plot holes left me hanging. What really happened in the tunnel? Just "something terrible"??? Who started all the killing if it wasn't the ghost? What did she want returned to her????? No answers whatsoever! Overall, not very scary at all and the movie makers need to come up with a lot better ideas than this...

One positive was the cute actress, but that's about it.

Not recommended.


Oh gosh,I'm really fed up with all these generic Japanese horror films about long-haired female ghosts and ghostly kids."Ghost Train" is no exception.It is clearly influenced by "Ringu","Ju-On","Shutter" and "Pulse".Two years ago I was into such modern ghost stories,because they usually managed to give me some goosebumps,unfortunately there is nothing fresh or interesting in "Ghost Train".In fact the film is really boring.Noriko goes missing in a subway tunnel-like an elementary-school classmate-Nana must investigate a mystery of multiple disappearances,with the help of a youthful train conductor and another "disappeared" child's mother.The film offers some mildly creepy moments,however the CGI effects are laughable and the climax is illogical.Skip it.


Oh noes one of these attack of the Japanese ghost girl movies... i don't even remember how many i've seen. maybe it sells... but not to me. not scary at all. the japanese horror movies are have been very similar since the first one of these... also the pulling of the kid. i have seen that pulled under scene so many times in so many horror movies. cellphone scene is also nothing new... the dramaticness of the guy getting hit by a train kinda sucked... i mean it lacked all dramaticness... OK this is for kids 14-16 who listen to japanese rock and think they are so unique... we'll let me tell you. there's a million of you =D this is one of them. 3/10 i've seen worse but you won't be missing anything by NOT seeing this!


Before "Miracle on 34th Street," Maureen O'Hara and John Payne made this, this, this film. I was going to describe it, but can't find words for how badly this film turned out. The subject matter of adopting a child and Maureen's illness are both very serious and sensitive issues, but that notwithstanding, this could have been done a whole lot better than it was. It was so extreme in its portrayal that it didn't come across as real at all. Probably its problem started with a weak script.

Another example of a screenwriter taking a novel and writing a weak movie. (See my review of "A Stranger in My Arms.") The beautiful O'Hara was often saddled with clunkers like this, another being Forbidden Street (Britannica Mews,) which I may review eventually.

If you have any emotional ties to this from childhood, you'll be kinder to this rather lifeless, colorless, and lackluster film. But for something along the lines of this, maybe you can find its TV-movie remake. It has to be better. It has to be.


Maureen O'Hara is always beautiful and appealing. Here she plays an actress terminally ill. We don't know with what.It is a bit of a precursor to "Love Story" in that respect.

William Bendix is good, as is most of the supporting cast. John Payne is meant to be grieving but he seems to sleepwalking. The girl who plays the child he and O'Hara adopts does her best with a contrived plot device: Of course! Adopt an orphan. She will live on after the passing of your wife. It's a sweet movie but it doesn't feel sincere.I was hoping to be moved. I was, by O'Hara's gentle performance. But I don't like to feel manipulated.


Try not to see this one. I thought it was going to be good because I'm a fan of cheesy 80's films and I've enjoyed quite a bit of Linnea Quigley's work. I was wrong. I should have said "no" and watched Gigli instead, which is probably a far better film. I guess my biggest problem with this film was its attempt at humor. Nothing about it was funny or even close to funny. The acting is bad, even for the queen of cheesy 80's films. There is no story, just random clips. I guess I shouldn't hate it so much because it was just made as a fun and silly piece but I didn't have any fun and I wasn't entertained once. I even had to fast forward to the ending to get through all of the crap. I'm sorry, but I don't find zombies doing aerobics funny.


This 'documentary' sheds absolutely no light on what it would be like to be backstage during the Hard Knock Life tour. Granted, I wasn't there, but watching this film didn't make me feel like I was. And for a film like this, that's not exactly a compliment. The whole time I watched it, all I could think was, "What are they leaving out?" When it's all over, the only rapper you feel like you have some insight into is DMX, and that's mainly because he just talks about his dogs. A waste of time.

3/10


This movie is bad as we all knew it would be. Most times i usually love the bad 80s / early 90s trash-can comedy (haha no pun intended). I list Ski School, Career opportunities, Hot Shots, Summer School and many more made around this time. This even has the classic yet forgotten comedy of Dean Cameron (aka.. ski School section 8 instructor and Party Maniac for Summer School). But this movie is just to slow. It takes almost 30 min to get going and we have to sit through pointless dialog between to half-wits the Sheen boys (E&C). And yes i can hear the bloggers dieing to trash me with "obviously you don't watch 2 and 1/2 men). Well Charlie was not at the level he is now during this flick...not that he's anything worth watching now. Charlie only shines when his co-stars support him and Emilio isn't anymore than an overused wonder bra offering little support. Actually, this movie was written by Emilio and it shows. It has no real ending (come on Emilio, even the Ski School 2 writers barfed out an ending). No idea how any issue brought is solved, no hot babes, no swearing to lighten the bad plot, characters, acting... I'm now tired of this tirade. Just save your time and watch the movies i listed above. You'll enjoy them much more.


This is one of those movies that I watch every time it's on not because I like it, but because it's so bad I can't take my eyes off it (like "Battlefield Earth" or "3000 Miles to Graceland"). The first time I watched I kept waiting and waiting and waiting to laugh and didn't get my chance until about 3/4 of the way through the movie when they strip the harassing cops to their undies and handcuff them in the park in a unflattering position. Beyond that, the jokes aren't funny, the characters aren't funny, their mishaps and missteps aren't funny...add it up, it's not a very funny movie! Not even at a slapstick level! And what's with the reggae soundtrack? It's a movie about two white garbagemen and the music is all reggae. Seems out of place, don't it? If you like a good trainwreck, this is for you. If you like a good comedy, look elsewhere.


I was duped into watching this by the many friendly reviews here. Boy, are they way off mark! To give this 9 to 10 points and call it "one of the best movies of the 1990ies" is just unjustifiable. The big problem here is lack of pace and a paper-thin plot. It's like slapstick on Prozac. Everything trundles along predictably and listlessly. The plot is weak to begin with -- two garbage men peep on their foxy neighbour, witness a murder and unravel a waste disposal conspiracy -- and the movie never manages to go much further. There are some amusing situations and decent acting, but that's not anywhere near enough to save this jalopy of a movie.

It's simply a comedy that doesn't get its fat ass off the ground, so why waste your time?


Writer-director Emilio Estevez shows a definite lack of talent here with this un-redeemable, supposed comedy. The script is completely hopeless, let alone the fact that it is unoriginal and badly worked. The comedy just does not work. When Estevez isn't using poor taste sex jokes, he is borrowing used gags and re-doing them very poorly. You would think the teaming of Estevez and brother Charlie Sheen would be cool...but...it isn't.

The entire cast is uninspired and unfunny, never managing to raise a laugh, and barely coaxing a smile from their audience. Do yourself a favour and leave this one on the video shelf.

Thursday, June 25, 1992 - Video


I know i loved this movie when i was 12-14 years old. Now that i am 24 i watched it again, and i wished i hadn't. Because all the things i laughed at when i was younger, is no longer funny. so this is an hour and a half without fun. For me the jokes were lame, not funny or just too childish. So the same thing i loved about the movie when i was a kid, is now the things i don't like about it. Besides not being funny it is not actually believable at all. The evil character is very poorly done but i guess that is the kind of movie it is. And the last 20 minutes of the movie is pretty lame with bad fighting sequences and so on... But if you are young you will probably love it. I rate this movie 4/10


I thought I had seen this film before as the plot summary sounded familiar. However, when I watched it one afternoon (in need of some mindless-but-amusing entertainment), I didn't recognise anything - if I had seen it before, I must have blocked the horror of it from my memory.

This film is dreadful, and it shows its age. In fact, it looks older than it is: more like a mid-80s moronic comedy. Whilst I am a fan of toilet humour and can see the funny side of many things, this is "comedy" at its most puerile and homophobic. The plot is as thin as a Supermodel, which wouldn't bother me if only the film were funny.

There is only one amusing line in the whole film, spoken by the character Louis: "Looks like somebody threw away a perfectly good white boy!" In fact, Louis is the only likable character (and that's not saying much). James and Carl are the type of irritating, immature men that a sensible woman would run a mile from, their practical jokes about as humorous as the war in Iraq; the character of Susan Wilkins is colourless (looks like Julia Roberts, but lacks her charisma) and there is zero chemistry between her and Carl - though it may be unfair to blame the actress, as I don't know what she could have done with such a poorly written part; and the villain is neither funny nor scary nor memorable.

There is good trash and bad trash. This is trash that definitely should not be recycled.


One of the dumbest movies in the history of cinema. Wait, I take that back-- this movie can't be included in any category related to "cinema"; it belongs in categories like "waste", turds, or similar categories. Ironically, it's even _about_ two garbagemen. The movie is "Men At Work", a lightweight crime comedy starring the Estevez (Sheen) brothers from 1990. Setting aside the asinine and implausible plot line, bad acting, bad dialogue, poorly executed stunts and slapstick, continuity errors, and high rate of no-name actors never to be seen again, all in all it was a pretty bad movie anyway (at its core, I mean). It was the kind of movie that might be good for one thing: you can watch it about 200 times, learn every line, and in a campy kind of way repeat them back and forth in public with your *wasted* friends, thus securing your status as the biggest dorks in your tenth grade class.

To make matters worse, I actually submitted an IMDb trivia entry (along with this bad review) to the movie's IMDb web page, if only because I spotted a silly little punk music joke that apparently nobody else spotted yet(about the Butthole Surfer statue). I'm so conflicted about why I should even *waste* my time submitting what looks like a supportive trivia note, when what I really want to do is blow up Emilio's acting career (no, wait, he's already done that himself. Thanks, dude!) I'm so glad I *wasted* only time on this, not real money. For that matter, can I maybe have at least one tenth of their budget? Anyone other than this director (Emilio) could have made two or three much better movies with just what they spent blowing up cars, carefully placing bikini-clad bimbos in the background, and beating up useless extras (henchmen) in haz-mat suits. I'd mention Emilio's writing credit, but it would be a stretch to call this screenplay "writing" -- it's more like crayon-scrawled cartoon ideas. And Charlie Sheen, if you're reading this, I assume M.A.W. must have been made during the part of your career in which you were a coked-up, hooker-loving Hollywood brat who had not grown up yet. (Oops! Sorry, I guess that part of your life isn't over yet. Get well soon, you "half a man". Such a promising talent, so *wasted* oh look, there's that word again.)


Unfortunately, Koontz seems doomed to die without seeing a decent adaptation of his work. Whispers follows the original book very closely, seemingly until the production company ran out of money. All of the sets in the first half of the movie were meticulously recreated from the book - something which has been lacking in many other Koontz films. Despite its other (numerous) downfalls, I continued to watch in anticipation of some really great scenery. Wrong. By the time the detectives show up at the crack head's apartment (in the book), the movie is out of funds, and one of the most suspenseful scenes from the book, is ruined. Where the book offered grisly discovery, a search and a chase through the guys apartment, the movie offers the backseat of the guys car.

Let's face it - Koontz writes without a budget in mind, because imagination is free. If a Koontz novel ever gets made into a decent movie, no one will go and see it, because they have been let down so many, many, many times before. This is why Dean Koontz's Frankenstein is now just Frankenstien - if you had seen your work butchered that many times, you'd get out early if it looked like happening again!


I actually saw the movie before I read the book. When I saw the movie I was upset because I wondered why Dean Koontz had made such a bad book/movie. The movie was confusing and didn't have a flow at all, it was choppy and made me want to throw a rock at the TV. I couldn't connect with the characters at all, so i didn't care about what happened to them(normally I love the characters because I can relate to their personality or problems). Then I read the book and loved it. I often re-read the book, and the movie is collecting dust. I wish someone would make a Koontz movie that follows the plot of his books, then the movies wouldn't suck so much. DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE UNLESS YOU NEED TO WASTE MONEY!


Just ONCE, I would like to see Koontz's work given to a decent screenwriter, director, and producer! JUST ONCE!

This is a good attempt by Jean LeClerc and Chris Sarandon, and an even better attempt by Victoria Tennant, but everything else is pure unadulterated garbage. The screenwriter should be shot for bastardizing Koontz's work this way and the director...please.

The story is a well-written story, but the screenplay is quite dull, unbelievable and horribly executed. The only elements which work are the performances by LeClerc, Sarandon, and Tennant.

On a personal note, I really wanted this to work. I adore Koontz's novels, but they have never given them the attention, backing, and talent they deserve. If they put the same money into Koontz's work that they shovel by the barrels-full into King's, Koontz would quickly rise above. But alas! Without powerful people who believe in his work, I fear he will never get the chance.

As an adaptation to the novel, this movie was a total suck-fest. As a stand alone movie, it wasn't that bad, though extremely weak in many places with huge plot holes and terrible, stiff, unprofessional dialog which never should have made it to the final cut. This movie failed miserably to live up to its potential. Had they followed the original work by Koontz, a bit more closely, and invested a decent amount of production money, this could have been a far better endeavor.

However, all I can manage to see in this, is how good it could have been, and wasn't.

It rates a 4.3/10 from...

the Fiend :.


A terminally dull mystery-thriller, which may sound pretty sound theoretically but plays out very poorly. The ludicrous script is full of (MINOR SPOILER) people dying and then coming back to life when the plot requires them to, and the director doesn't seem able to work up any energy and suspense. The gooey sequence that kind of "explains" the film's title is the only halfway memorable one in this tiresome film. (*1/2)


The 1977 animated-live action hybrid version of Gulliver's Travels (or rather 'Travel,' since he only gets as far as Lilliput) didn't get much of a release, and it's not too difficult to see why. Michel Legrand comes up with some catchy tunes, but they merely inspire lyricist Don Black to the likes of "One simple fact remains/No-one here suffers from growing pains.' Richard Harris once again over-indulges in his passion for excessive makeup, toning down the eyeliner for far too much foundation this time in an effort to hide the fact he's at least 25 years too old for the role, but at least he (perhaps inappropriately) reduces his larger-than-life tendencies for a performance made up mainly of patronising whispering. The Belgian animation looks only slightly better than early morning French children's TV, but Peter Hunt's film is not nearly as bad as it sounds  the use of real model sets for the animated characters harks back to Max and Dave Fleischer's 1939 version while a couple of moments of Swiftian satire do remain - although it's definitely aimed at the youngest of children.


I had watched this on Italian TV as a kid and recall being fond of it – in view of its mixing live-action with animation; however, it was universally panned at the time…and, catching up with it again after all these years, I have to admit that the critics were right!

What must have seemed wondrous to a child's eyes is actually very poorly done, not to mention boring for a fantasy-adventure; fatally, both star (ex-'Angry Young Man' Richard Harris) and director (action expert Hunt) are ill-suited to the material! At least, Michel Legrand's score (with lyrics provided by scriptwriter Don Black) is serviceable – if not exactly inspired. By the way, a number of well-known personalities are featured among the voice artists on this British-Belgian co-production (Julian Glover, Bessie Love, Murray Melvin, Robert Rietty, Vladek Sheybal, Graham Stark and, this being his last film work, Michael Bates).

While the essential plot points of Jonathan Swift's classic novel ('giant' Gulliver becomes the pawn in a war between the little people of two neighboring countries and, on escaping, ends up in a land of real giants) do emerge here, it's done on a strictly kiddie level (with stereotyped characters though, thankfully, little intrusion of the comic/romantic variety) – which renders the whole venture somewhat pointless, outside of its intrinsically experimental nature, since Max and Dave Fleischer had already done a splendid feature-length cartoon version of the book way back in 1939!


Peter Hunt started out as a very gifted film editor and got his first stab at directing when he helmed the James Bond film "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (considered by many Bond fans to be the best of the series). Other titles in his filmography include epic scale adventure movies like "Gold" and "Shout At The Devil", both adapted from Wilbur Smith novels. "Gulliver's Travels" is an odd one on his list of films; it seems strange that a director of Hunt's style and expertise would choose to direct a film of this kind. A half-live action/half-animated retelling of Jonathan Swift's classic satire, the film looked twenty years out of date even when it was made, and in all honesty it simply doesn't work. And there's not a damn thing that Hunt (with his usual eye for fast-paced action), or star Richard Harris (who can usually enliven the most stilted of roles) can do to rescue this one.

Lemuel Gulliver (Richard Harris) is a brilliant medical student living in 17th Century Bristol. His father (Norman Shelley) wants him to go to London to make his fortune; but Gulliver prefers the idea of receiving rather less pay but a heck of a lot more adventure as a ship's surgeon aboard a ship called the 'Antelope'. During a voyage, the 'Antelope' is blown off course during a storm and hits a reef. The ship sinks and everyone is lost, apart from Gulliver. who finds himself washed ashore in the kingdom of Lilliput. When he comes round, Gulliver finds that the strange land where he has washed ashore is populated by incredibly small humans, no taller than his toe. To them, he looks like a giant. They persuade Gulliver to help them in a war against another race of tiny people who live on an adjacent island. But Gulliver doesn't like being manipulated for purposes of war and devastation, so he makes plans to escape.

Harris is left to carry the entire film here. His first couple of scenes involve other actors, but once he is shipwrecked in Lilliput he spends the rest of the film striding over knee-high sets and acting alongside his animated counterparts. The idea of mixing live action and animation was not new at the time, but it certainly hadn't been done a lot. A few Disney movies like Song Of The South, So Dear To My Heart and Pete's Dragon had tampered with the idea, but it was still pretty much in its infancy. "Gulliver's Travels" is not an especially well-animated film, but the scenes showing interaction between Harris and his cartoon co-stars are at least competently done. Occasionally the film tries to be true to its satirical origins (there's one scene where we learn that Lilliput has gone to war with its neighbour because of eggs !?! - and the point seems to be that wars can begin over the most ridiculous of things). But at its heart, this is very much a kids' film and the satirical overtones are barely dwelled upon. Everyone involved has done better things during their career  "Gulliver's Travels" might fill an otherwise empty afternoon, but apart from that it is a forgettable and underwhelming experience.


This was painful! Recently given away as a free DVD with a British newspaper, this British-Belgian co-production from 1977 (could've fooled me, it looks ten years older than that at least) is quite deservedly obscure and if you make it past the half-hour mark, consider yourself a trouper. The combining of animation and live action is ropey at best and downright dreadful at worst, which makes you wonder why it was decided to even attempt making the film in this manner when clearly the technology wasn't really there. Harris is no more than a human prop and the animation is some of the most flat and lifeless I've seen, with the obligatory 'trippy' moments (especially where the animation of the brainiac-type Subtracto character is involved) that rendered countless cartoon features from the late sixties onward instantly dated. The screenplay by Don Black provides a convincing argument for the usually resilient lyricist to stick to what he does best, and the pace is so slow that even the very young will be bored. As for adults, stick to Jonathan Swift's original novel.


Blindingly stupid guff from the formerly talented John Hughes, who'll soon be making a film with the sperm from 'Look Who's Talking' if his stars get any younger. He recycles the 'Home Alone' formula yet again to produce this idiotic comedy, in which a baby makes his way around Chicago while inept kidnappers Joe Mantegna, Joe Pantoliano and Brian Haley try to catch him, along the way enduring much tiresome slapstick. If Mantegna and Pantoliano can't find a laugh somewhere in your movie then you're in trouble, but the laziness of the movie is most glaring in the scenes where crowds of people fail to notice a baby crawling around on the pavement. Utter nonsense.


Get Shorty was an excellent film. It was funny and had the perfect balance of highly comical acting and a serious plot. Be Cool is like some cheap knock-off trying to pass for a sequel. John Travolta as Chili Palmer seems to have forgotten that he was ever in the mob. He plays it like he's a bored movie exec, rather than a bored movie exec who used to be a Shylock. Uma Thurman, great in nearly every role she's ever played, comes off as strained and confusing. Is she supposed to be ditzy or clever? The chemistry between her and Travolta is strained and uncomfortable. Other than that, just add every movie cliché you can think of. A well-educated rap producer by Cedric the Entertainer, an inept gangster wannabe in Andre 3000, the girl with heart, soul, and a good set of pipes in Christina Milian, a gimmicky black dude wannabe in Vince Vaughn, and a stupid celebrity cameo by Stephen Tyler. The only funny part was the Rock, who invents his own new cliché as a gay Samoan bodyguard actor wannabe. Probably the biggest crime is the plot: IT MAKES NO SENSE. Get Shorty was clever with Chili playing one group against another and coming out on top. But this film tries that with about a million different characters. And even Chili doesn't seem to know what's going on. Fans of Get Shorty be warned: this is a very different, very worse movie.


Back in 1995, Barry Sonnenfeld directed a movie that ended up on many critics best of lists by the time the year's recaps were being printed in entertainment publications. The movie was Get Shorty and it gave lead star John Travolta his second big hit in as many years after Pulp Fiction put him back in front of the paparazzi's lenses. Based on a novel by Elmore Leonard, the film focused on wise guy Chili Palmer (Travolta) and his attempts to break into the movie business. I, for one, was completely captured by the diverse characters and crisp dialogue of the original. So much so, that when I heard there was going to be a sequel, I seemed to forgo my usual shivering that occurs when a studio tries to rehash what was a good idea over ten years later. The sequel, also based on a novel by Leonard, is this time directed by F. Gary Gray who's Italian Job in 2003 was one of the years highest grossing films. Couple that with the cast now expanding to include Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel, Cedric the Entertainer, The Rock, Vince Vaughn and James Woods and you have all the makings of a great continuance in the exploits of one of the more interesting characters of the 1990's. This time round we pick up as Chili (Travolta) is leaving the movie business after being disappointed in both himself and the industry for participating in the making of a sequel to his successful first film. Thanks in small part to his friend, Tommy Athens (Woods) and the misfortune of his death, Chili decides to look into the lucrative and dangerous music industry. This first leads to the famous Viper club where Chili meets singing sensation Linda Moon (Christina Milian) who as lead of an upstart trio, can belt out tunes like Whitney Houston (that is, the Whitney before Bobby Brown started bringing home the small packages of sugar). Linda is under contract with Raji (Vaughn) who, with his overly apparent gay bodyguard Elliot Wilhelm (The Rock), plan to ensure Linda fulfills the final five years of her contract even if that means putting Chili on ice. So with Linda's future in the balance, Chili weaves an interesting web which will include a record producer (Thurman), a gangsta sound mixer (Cedric), the Russian mob, the police, Aerosmith's lead singer Steven Tyler and a whole lot of angry gun pointing. Woo-Wheee! That sounds exciting. So why wasn't it? Be Cool tries too hard to, well, be cool. But the result is a film that unlike the original, has no heart and no soul. Be Cool feels instead like it was directed by a Saturday Night Live producer as there are individual scenes or skits that don't string together over a whole movie. Take for example the scene where Travolta and Thurman dance together for the first time since Pulp Fiction, as Black Eyed Peas performs live in the background. The scene is forced and should have ended up on the cutting room floor. Instead, it is coupled between two other needless chapters that do nothing to push the story forwards with any real thrust. The Aerosmith concert, and The Rock's trip to a boot shop are also prime examples of individual moments that don't amount to much of a movie when put together. But those aren't the only issues with the sequel - which could probably be renamed Product Placement with the amount of 2-Ways and Diet Pepsi's that seem to stare at you more intensely than Chili's serious look. The story contains just about every stereotype imaginable and each one has just enough screen time to become slightly offensive or embarrassing. Whether it is the gangsta entourage or the gay muscle guy that has a movie poster of Sylvester Stallone's Rhinestone on the wall, no characters is above offering us anything we haven't seen many times before and in much better films. With the magic all but gone from the first film, we end up with an inferior product that is the second film in the past six months (Ocean's 13 being the other) that cram a bunch of stars onto a marquee only to end up as a movie that no actor would bring to an open audition. Be Cool was a major disappointment. I so wanted it to be the Get Shorty of the new millennium and I ended up with a film where the outtakes must have been a gas, but experience left me with a stinker.


I laughed twice watching this movie and in case you were wondering, I wasn't having a bad day nor was I subjected to anything else that would've skewed my opinion while watching this cinematic bowel movement. This movie is bad. I wanted to enjoy it and I just couldn't. With all of this talent, you'd think this would've been at least watchable, right? Wrong.

Let's play Sucked and Didn't Suck! John Travolta- Very likable. Though obviously buried under too much makeup, I found him to be enjoyable to watch. Didn't suck.

Uma Thurman- After Kill Bill 1 and 2, the girl deserves more than this atrociously written character. This character's big moment was showing someone how to operate a T-Mobile Sidekick. Sucked.

Vince Vaughn- The done to death role of white guy who thinks he's black goes to Vince "Money" Vaughn. Is this character template still considered to be funny? I love the guy but I want to see him in something better than this. It felt like he was slumming. Sucked.

Cedric the Entertainer- This guy is good. He delivers a great monologue after being called a racial slur (you can probably guess as to what it is) that was probably the best part of the movie. He was funny and truly elevated the material he was given just with his presence. Didn't suck.

Harvey Keitel- Sucked due to a phoned in performance.

James Woods- Sucked but not his fault. Actually, yes it was. Reminded me of his role in Casino for some reason. I don't like manic James Woods, I like slow burn James Woods. Victim of bad writing, maybe? Andre 3000- Sucked but he went down swinging. I think he has potential, as long as he's not being directed by a hack on his next picture.

Christina Milian- She's absolutely beautiful and obviously talented but this movie isn't going to make her a star. Didn't suck but needs a better vehicle for her talents that isn't directed by a hack.

The Rock- This should have been the role that catapulted him to movie stardom but as directed by F. Gary Gray, winds up sadly mishandled. In this movie, the Rock projects this charisma that makes him so likable that I wound up feeling sorry for him. He tries really hard and while he doesn't succeed completely, he gets an A+ for effort from me. This guy is not afraid to embarrass himself and go completely against type, playing a gay bodyguard with his eyes on stardom. I really want to see him make it big. He has what it takes as long as he's not being directed by a hack.

Which brings me to what I feel was the weak link in this production. I might as well just come out and say it, right? F. Gary Gray's direction was about as solid as really bad diarrhea. Wow, it was bad. Who had the bright idea of letting this guy direct? The Negotiator was good but what else on his resume convinced people that he was the man for the job? Between his direction and the atrocious writing, I'm willing to chip in for both culprits to get a nice lead salad to the knees. Wanna see John and Uma dance? I might be able to think of another movie with those two that I could recommend watching instead of this. Not worth the ten dollars and fifty cents it cost me to get into the theater.

This movie could've been okay and it wasn't even "just okay".

RATING: * out of *****.

P.S. Fergie from Black Eyed Peas is noteworthy to mention. Sizzling!


John Travolta reprises his role as Chili Palmer, Hollywood gangster, who now turns his eye to the music business. Using his "negotiation skills," he tries to run an independent record label with the wife of a murdered friend, played by Uma Thurman, and try to get his young singer (Christina Milian) a hit record.

Before I saw this sequel, I had heard that it was a terrible film. However, Be Cool is still an enjoyable comedy even if it's not as good as the original. The movie focuses on the music industry this time around instead of the movie industry. The music business is portrayed very poorly in the movie and they use a bunch of lame stereotypes. I can't tell if this was the intention or not since Get Shorty did a nice job of spoofing the movie industry. The same can't be said for the sequel and the attempts just come as lazy.

An impressive cast is what saves the movie from sinking. The best performance is given by The Rock and it's nice to see him in a different type of role. Vince Vaughn also gives a funny performance though he started to get annoying before the end. Surprisingly, Uma Thurman gives an average performance and I was expecting more from her. John Travolta returns as Chili and he does an okay job. His performance is kind of dull though. Christina Milian gives a horrible performance and she's also not that good of a singer. Cedric the Entertainer gives a good performance though he isn't in the film for very long. There are also a bunch of cameos including Steven Tyler and James Wood.

F. Gary Gray directs and he does a poor job. He just doesn't handle the film very well and the movie is kind of a mess. There was also a ton of product placement and it got annoying after awhile. Also at 118 minutes, the film is too long and there are a lot of slow spots. The film needed to be edited badly and it clearly wasn't. Fortunately for the film, the actors are able to rise above the weak direction and script and they deliver some funny scenes. Sometimes, the film tried too hard while other times it was actually pretty funny. Compared to the original, the sequel doesn't measure up well. However, Be Cool is a fairly harmless and forgettable comedy. In the end, Be Cool is worth a rental and that's it. Rating 6/10


I'm a fan of Get Shorty. This is the sequel for the movie that needed no sequel.

Chili is back but Rene Russo is gone without a peep. Unfortunately Chili's game was played out in the first movie and rather than find an interesting personal arc for him, they just have him stand around repeating lines from the first movie. It's pretty tepid. Travolta looks old here. It's like they move people around him because his bones are getting creaky. His pink lip gloss and the blue eye contacts are very weird. The 2nd bad role is Edie (played by Uma Thurman). She's a music producer, a role that requires her only to be the female Reuben Kincaid. ("Hey these kids have a great new sound.") In any scene she strikes the wrong pitch motivationally or emotionally or both. It's painful to watch. Despite it's plentiful problems, Be Cool gets better after a very unpromising start.

I certainly got my laughs out of it (Vince Vaughan running around on fire, Cedric the Entertainer, Ludicrous, the Rock, a t-shirt that says "widow" on it), but it offers no great memories after it's over. It's a helium-light love fest from the first frame. There's no one as pricelessly idiotic as Gene Hackman in the first movie. It's just about doing good in the world, for a couple of kids who deserve a chance (Beyonce & the Rock). Ho-hum. The first one wasn't preachy.

Working in (repeatedly) gags & lines from the first movie is annoying as is the dumb concession to the Rock's wrestling fans (he raises his eyebrow twice) as are the droll inside jokes: Steven Tyler saying "I'm not the kind of singer that make appearances in movies" ar ar.

The all-star spectacular line-up is part of the problem. The first movie wasn't burdened by "stars."

For a buck rental let's call it even.


The first 10 minutes of the movie makes fun of sequels and pg-13 movies. These are the 2 reasons the movie is so bad. They constantly reference a movie called "Get Leo" which is the movie-in-a-movie version of get shorty. Every time they do this, you will be really angry. Travolta isn't very cool, neither is Keitel. However, The Rock and Vince Vaughn are hilarious. They aren't the kind of funny you would expect to see in an Elmore Leonard movie though. If you haven't seen get shorty, you will probably like be cool. If you liked get shorty, you will leave the theater wanting to kill the director and screenwriter. Wait for the DVD.


That movie while slightly flawed was entirely entertaining. About half an hour into Be Cool, I started to have Hollywood Homicide flashbacks. But guess what? This is worse. Even the dance number is bad. I like most of the cast in this movie, so that makes me feel bad about writing a negative review of it but I feel obligated. The Rock, Andre 3000, and Vince Vaughn were in a comedy. No one else seemed to decide what movie genre they were acting in. I feel bad for Travolta because he brought the same Chili Palmer from Get Shorty to this movie. He was totally consistent in the role, but this movie is so different from the original that the character sticks out like a sore thumb. I was going to give this movie 4/10 because I like the actors so much but there is a conversation in the movie about a certain song that is so asinine I couldn't believe the performers actually said it. If you want to go to the movies this weekend there should still be some Oscar contenders out there. That would be a much better way to spend your time.


I rarely give ratings less than 5, but in this instance I must weigh in. Elmore Leonard is a great writer with many wonderful, complex books, original characters, crisp dialogue, invigorating plot twists. Films based on his books go way back to Hombre (Paul Newman), Mr. Majestyk (Bronson), and Out of Sight (Clooney / Lopez) among others. Even when done so-so the films at least have some measure of story essence coming through. This one, .... it is simply not a worthy addition to the catalog.

The acting is bad (I do not know why, because these are very capable people here) and the story is handled with stupidity. The characters are re-arranged, the chemistry is missing, the actors and actresses are mis-cast.

Since Elmore Leonard is a really great story teller, I would hope that anyone who does not know his work would be dissuaded from reading his books because they saw this disappointing rendition of one of his stories.

The story is a sequel to Get Shorty. If you have not seen that film, do not watch this. If you have seen Get Shorty, do not proceed to this.

I saw Be Cool a few years back, and tonight have been re-visiting the vid. The first time must not have made such a negative impression because I had forgotten how dismal this sequel was.

Fortunately, I think no less of those who appeared in this film for having done so. They probably expected something more. Get Shorty was original and great fun. Travolta I nearly always like, but he is so much better in Tarantino's Pulp Fiction and in the preceding Get Shorty. He was clearly unable to enjoy whatever was going on here.

And I hear Freaky Deaky,another Elmore Leonard book, is in pre-production for 2008 release. Hopefully they can pull it off.

Read the books. They are almost all great.


If pulp fiction and Get shorty didn't exist this might be an OK film.When i say this i mean that nothing from this film is it's own unless it's another bit of terrible dialogue or a cliché full scene.All the lines like 'i won't say more than i have to if that' from Get shorty seem to appear in this rubbish sequel, all the cameos like Steven Tyler's are acted terribly and are not needed and as for Christina Milian, man, don't get me started.Sadly some of the coolest actors and actresses like John Travolta and Uma Thurman seem like they are trying to be down with the kids and hip and have nearly ruined there reputation because of this film and frankly i think the best acting is from The rock who plays alongside one of my least favourite actors, Vince Vaughn.The man tries to be funny throughout with him taking the mickey of how apparently rappers talk.Cedric the entertainer and Andre 3000 play another terrible double act {i personally think the background actors were better than Cedric and Andre} and the only funny part of the acting of Cedric,Andre and the rest of there gang do is the way there trousers are down to there knees so you can clearly see there boxers and the only reason i find this funny is because lots of people actually do that.So in conclusion this film tries to be funny and fails miserably, it doesn't have any new material, comedy or coolness throughout as it copies every other film and finally the only reason you should see it is if you want to compare how bad it is to it's brilliant predecessor Get shorty.Oh yes i forgot to mention there is a BIG cliché at the end.


Sometimes when I hear an A-list cast will be bunched up together for 2 hours in a movie I hope, and pray that it is good, not for the sake of my 10 bucks or 2 hours, but for the sake of these actors' careers. In the case of "Be Cool", everything went to waste.

In the beginning of the film John Travolta (aka Chili Palmer) and a music executive played by James Woods are driving in a car talking about movie sequels, and how most aren't good. If you look passed the fact that this scene was shot the same way Quentin Tarrantino filmed his car scene in "Pulp Fiction", and listen to the dialogue you can't help but ponder whether this is 1) a disclaimer to the audience that this movie is going to suck, or 2) an attempt to get the audience laughing at the sheer humor of 2 people talking about sequels in a sequel. Oh the irony! (In case you were wondering, choice 1 is correct.) The cool and slick Chili Palmer from the first and good film "Get Shorty" is revived to play a mobster gone music business pro. He steals a young hot singer (Christina Milian) from her ghetto pimped out Jewish manager (Vince Vaughn), and turns her into a singing sensation. Of course a movie about an ex-mobster can never be complete without new mobsters causing havoc. This time around the mobsters of choice are Russian, played by American actors who cannot act Russian if my entire family hit them upside the head with their Russian bare hands.

As a Russian I wasn't so much offended by the way this film portrayed Russians, but instead as a writer I was more offended by the horrible dialogue. This film tried too hard to get the audience to laugh. It turned potentially good lines into a redundancy. The Russian, black, and gay jokes were the same ones only reworded a couple of hundred times. After calling The Rock's character a f***** (he plays a gay bodyguard to Vince Vaughn), and Cedric the Entertainerer's character a n***** (he played a black rapper with an entourage who threaten those who don't play his tracks with guns) I wanted to walk out of the movie theater, because it was painful to sit through. If this was "Get Shorty" none of this would've even needed to be in the film to build up drama, or a really bad laugh.

What lacked in this film that didn't in "Get Shorty" was Chili's hot spicey attitude. He's a completely different person in this sequel. For one thing the old Chili would've had more dialogue. John Travolta doesn't have more than 20 speaking lines in "Be Cool", because he is out staged by the repetitive lines, and the hundred and two cameo appearances by the most random celebrities. I won't ruin the shock by revealing all of the cameos for those who actually plan to see this movie (PLEASE DON'T!!!), but I will say that it will forever amaze me that these people agreed to be in a film of such inanity.

What was even more stupid was the very lame dance sequence with Travolta and Uma Thurman (she plays the widower of James Woods who LUCKILY gets killed in the first 10 minutes of the movie). Tarrantino never made Pulp Fiction for an idiot like the director of "Be Cool" to mess around with. This dance number was boring, long, and just plain throbbing. The Black Eyed Peas playing in the club with a total of 10 people didn't make the scene any memorable.

There were so many plot holes that I left the theater asking myself WHY?! Everything about this film was a big question mark. I just didn't understand the point to anything. I couldn't even explain to you why the Russians were after everyone, or why this film was ever made, because I'm baffled. All I took out of this movie was that everyone in L.A. has a sidekick, and the only way this movie was probably funded was through all of the advertisements by Diet Coke, Yahoo!, Honda Insight Hybrid, T-Mobile, Trimspa (even the spokeswoman herself is in the movie) and the Bad Screenwriters Guild. Plot holes, stupid dialogue, too many random cameos, horrible acting (even by the pros), and a not-so-entertaining attempt to mimic "Pulp Fiction" makes this film the worst movie of 2005, and it's only the third month of the year.


I saw a 12:45 a.m. show last night, and I would've walked out 20 min. in, but there was nowhere to go! Blatant product placement, juvenile script, so much talent gone to waste, gay-bashing...what didn't they do? The movie is also insanely long (we got out at 3). As a person who rarely pays full price at the movies, imagine my chagrin doling out $22 for this self-indulgent, mean-spirited nightmare (plus $2 parking). I woke up today still feeling depressed, and haven't been able to shake it all day. I love Vince Vaughn, and he seemed straight up lost in this thing, as was I. When Cedric the Entertainer is the high-water mark (a man so un-entertaining that he has to call himself "the Entertainer" so you'll understand what it is he thinks he's doing), you have a serious problem. Also, the appearance of Robert Pastorelli is down-right creepy, since he died almost a year ago (March 10). This should give you an idea how long they've been polishing this turd. This movie is mean to the bitter end. We stayed just to make sure they didn't give Robert an "In Remembrance", which they didn't. Save yourself! Save your money! Save your soul!


Chili Palmer is tired of doing movies and know wants to do some success in music. Being half mafioso half expert negotiator, he wants to rise in the music market. However, know everyone is like him and making the good singer Linda Moon to record a hit will be harder as expected. The first part is funny and filled with irony, this one falls into the easy jokes and has many less good moments. Only the two women (Uma and Milian) are decent in their part. Most of the film is done with histrionic character, excessively exaggerated (a little is OK, too much is disgusting) and the only one that one could save is the gay bodyguard, who, at least is coherent, the rest, are too much idiot. The most surprising thing is the fact that the movie is not boring, everything happens so quick and there are so many things happening that you do not have time to get bored, if you want to follow the movie. It may insult your intelligence (a lot!), and the movie is bad(yeah!), but, well, it's not boring.


OK I was bought this a few Xmas' ago by my brother in law, who took me to see "Get Shorty" in the cinema, which the both of use were "uber" impressed with. And watched both get shorty and be cool one after another. I have read reviews of people that had not seen get shorty and thought this film was quite good.... I just think its another way for film companies to cheat the paying customer. All I have to say about this film is WTF? After nearly 10 years and Chili Palmer had become a pussy.... The script was basically the same, they teamed up Travolta and Thurman after their success of Plup Fiction, threw in a couple of big stars(plus a shed load of nobodies) and thought that it was going to be good..... Vince Vaughn's character was just annoying, despite me being a fan of both him and the Rock both of the actors were way under utilised and unrealistic. Basically I am glad that this was bought for me as a present as if I had paid money for it I would have been super annoyed.


This movie was an embarrassment. Ulma Thurman looked like she had some kind of disease and John Travolta looked like he was walking in his sleep. I was expecting this to be a so-so sequel to Get Shorty not a half-baked remake of the exact same movie (except that some of the character's have different names and clothes)

I would not recommend this to movie to my worst enemy. I feel like I was ripped off and Hollywood has once again tricked me into seeing another horrible sequel ( I also suffered through Alien Vs. Predator).

The best thing that I can say about this movie is that it has my vote for the worst movie of 2005!


Although I think the reviewers who hated this movie have encapsulated exactly what it does wrong (everything!), I had to add my two cents. If you'd like a long version of how terrible this movie is, please read the review by coinlightning.

Here's the short version: shameless use of the actors' NAMES to propel the plot as opposed to using their talent (no one brought their "A game" to this), blatant commercialism (I guess Pepsi can afford to stick an advertisement - or 40 - into a movie now), and a plot (???) that was so convoluted with "rock star" clichés that it was totally ridiculous.

Let me put it to you this way . . . I was thinking of 'Wayne's World' the whole time I was watching this movie, but I wasn't laughing! Anytime you try to throw in Steven Tyler (Aerosmith) to help your movie plot along you've got SERIOUS problems.

PLEASE, warn your friends and family - this movie sucks.


I really liked Get Shorty, but this movie was completely disappointing as a sequel. First of all, Travolta does not in any way resemble the Chili Palmer from Get Shorty. He merely half-assed this performance as he has done in all of his more recent movies. He totally isn't smooth or have the mobster presence about him that makes you kinda root for him throughout the movie. It just seems like Travolta rolled out of bed and decided he was good to go for acting in this movie. The plot just wasn't exciting or clever, there really aren't any highlights that happen, the only thing that resembled entertainment was watching Christina Millian perform and The Rock was funny. But anyways, long story short, this movie was trash and I had to force myself just to get through it.


Uma and Travolta were very good together, but - unfortunately - when they left the screen, the movie was nothing but a bunch of very boring and wordy secondary characters wrapped in some extremely bad writing. Occasional glimpses of greatness like the dance scene between Uma and Travolta quickly eroded when the likes of Harvey Keitel and similar uninteresting thugs came on. And the white dude who tried to act black got VERY, VERY tiresome after way too much exposure in the picture. He weighed down a fairly good performance by the Rock, the only secondary character who you couldn't wait to see leave the screen. Bad, dumb plot. The writers clearly couldn't figure out if they writing to Generation X or the 12-15 year old rap crowd, and the combination turned into a film that kept me staring at my watch!


"Get Shorty", "Out of Sight", "Jackie Brown" (and even "52 Pick-Up")--folks were finally getting Elmore Leonard right, making good movies out of his work. So, despite my students' warnings about how bad this movie would be, I couldn't resist renting it. I thought, How bad can it be? Oy, what a mistake, especially right on the heels of reading the book, which was lame (and too circularly self-referential, too) relative to the rest of Elmore Leonard's books. Still, the book was better than the movie. Leonard again trumps the weak and unskilled screen-writers who try to take over his book. The dialogue written for Steven Tyler was painful to watch. And the lyrics to the character Linda Moon's first song? My middle-schoolers write with more depth. Sad, sad, sad. Why even give it a star? Because Harvey Keitel and Uma Thurman are still fun to see on screen, and Andre 3000 didn't make a complete fool of himself.


Travolta and Thurman deserved a better movie. This one is very secondary in all aspects, not a single fresh idea. But the biggest problem is this film's ridiculous philosophy. A gang of black rappers after all their criminal activities and even killing people are becoming almost positive Mickey Mouse-like heroes performing on stage and giving away awards at the ceremony. Perhaps this matches the real life. But showing it as a quite normal "happy-ending" is beyond my imagination.. "What's wrong with shooting a couple of bad Ukrainians if they are not politically correct?" - the show must go on! That makes me think that Hollywood writers have a big problem with separating good and evil, even if the genre supposed to be a "black comedy"..


Despite John Travolta's statements in interviews that this was his favorite role of his career, "Be Cool" proves to be a disappointing sequel to 1995's witty and clever "Get Shorty."

Travolta delivers a pleasant enough performance in this mildly entertaining film, but ultimately the movie falls flat due to an underdeveloped plot, unlikeable characters, and a surprising lack of chemistry between leads Travolta and Uma Thurman. Although there are some laughs, this unfunny dialog example (which appeared frequently in the trailers) kind of says it all: Thurman: Do you dance? Travolta: Hey, I'm from Brooklyn.

The film suggests that everyone in the entertainment business is a gangster or aspires to be one, likening it to organized crime. In "Get Shorty," the premise of a gangster "going legitimate" by getting into movies was a clever fish-out-of water idea, but in "Be Cool," it seems the biz has entirely gone crooked since then.

The film is interestingly casted and the absolute highlight is a "monolgue" delivered by The Rock, whose character is an aspiring actor as well as a goon, where he reenacts a scene between Gabrielle Union and Kirsten Dunst from "Bring It On." Vince Vaughan's character thinks he's black and he's often seen dressed as a pimp-- this was quite funny in the first scene that introduces him and gets tired and embarrassing almost immediately afterward.

Overall, "Be Cool" may be worth a rental for John Travolta die-hards (of which I am one), but you may want to keep your finger close to the fast forward button to get through it without feeling that you wasted too much time. Fans of "Get Shorty" may actually wish to avoid this, as the sequel is devoid of most things that made that one a winner. I rate this movie an admittedly harsh 4/10.


I really wanted to like this movie. The previews looked marginally funny but I figured they put most of the funny stuff in the previews. In this case, they not only did that but they twisted the clips so that they appeared much funnier than they were in the real film. I like John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Vince Vaughn, The Rock, Cedric the Entertainer, etc. so I wanted to like this movie but it just never seemed to do anything.

I saw Get Shorty and did not particularly care for it. Too slow and unfunny for me. This movie is certainly no better and, if anything, is worse. There were a lot of opportunities for some good comedic moments but it took none of them.

The acting was okay but even John Travolta seemed toned down. Cedric was okay but he was too reigned in to be really funny. Vince Vaughn and the Rock were pretty good and ready to be funny but they just let it all pass them by. I wish they had been given a chance to follow through with the funny things they set up but instead it just kept going back to the same old thing and back to just setting Vaughn and Rock up to be funny (though never allowed to really deliver that punchline or comedy).

Overall, this was a very disappointing movie and I am glad I only saw it on video. At least it was cheaper than the theater.


This movie is such a waste of talented people and Hollywood budget. It made me think everyone in the movie was paying off a favor by being in it because they were all out of place and wasted talent in this horrible trash pile of a film. It's a contrived plot that is just pathetic, unrealistic and not even close to fun or interesting. The only thing that kept my interest was the numerous big names in the movie that kept popping up for no apparent reason and who had no acting or good lines to contribute to the mess of a film. I kept expecting it to have some good stuff since all of these people had been cool in other films. But it never came through. This film should be shown in prison as punishment, but that would be cruel and unusual. You will be shocked to see so many recognizable faces parading around such a horrible pathetic script with flat lines and horrifically bad acting. This movie reminded me of another complete waste of time with lots of recognizable faces BIG TROUBLE (2002), which also went off the readable scale on the suck-o-meter.


I went to the cinema slightly apprehensive, I came out seething with anger at the garbage (passing for a film)I had witnessed. The actors, particularly Travolta, should be ashamed of themselves for their participation in this. Clearly the only thing in their minds was the pay cheque, never mind the debasement of their talents and us . Travolta needs to go back to doing some more "Look who's Talking" movies as he has sunk back to the level of his pre-Tarantino work. It comes to something when the L W Talking sequels are better than this one. Travolta is no longer the King of Cool but the King of Corn. Michael Caine himself admitted to doing bad movies for the pay cheque, Trvolta should follow suit if he has any self respect !


Travolta, Thurman, The Rock, Vaughn, Keitel and so on. One should think that this star parade of great actors could really heat up this movie, but no. Travolta takes on the role as Chili Palmer again, but this time we have already seen the gangster who tries hes luck in the hard world of movie making, its not funny anymore. This is a typically problem in Hollywood, they think that if the first was good, the second will be twice as good, NO, the first was original, the second cant be, Hey Hollywood try to understand originality cant be duplicated, you got to give us a new twist, not just the same movie again made with a bigger budget. I constantly found my selves Hardly laughing when I was watching this movie, but still it got a lot of cool actors like Harvey Keitel, James Woods, Vince Vaughn and The Rock and for that and that only!

4/10


I enjoyed the beautiful scenery in this movie the first time I saw it when I was 9 . Dunderklumpen is kind of cute for kiddies in a corny way. It reminded me of HRPUFFINSTUFF on sat mornings, Its Swedish backdrops make it easy on the eyes . Don't expect older kids to be interested as the live action/animation is way behind the times and most older kids will get bored.This is definitely an under 10 age set movie and a nice bit of memories for those of us who were little kids in 1974.


If there was justice in the cinematic universe, director Lewis Schoenbrun would never be allowed to set foot on a movie set again. It would seem inconceivable that anyone who spent two full decades in an editing room, where LS started his movie career, could be so utterly devoid of any sense of pacing or dramatic staging, but this film is damning evidence.

As bad as it is, it is fascinatingly so. From the opening scene, where a nurse is clad in a costume appropriate only for a porno film or a skit on a Mexican variety show, the viewer is compelled to see just how low it can go. The answer isn't far away, as in the next scene we move to a funeral parlor, where the next stunning fashion statement comes in a sexy off-the-shoulders black dress worn by one of the mourners.

Aggressively inappropriate costuming isn't the film's only flaw. The dialog is a treat for connoisseurs of bad writing. "You turn my tears into wine," is a sample gem. The actor deserves an Oscar for delivering that one with a straight face.

The director reinforces every cheeseball scene with what is possibly the schmaltziest soundtrack score ever recorded, which veers from embarrassingly maudlin in the dialog scenes to cheesy groovebox wannabe rocknroll in transitional scenes.

The script introduces characters with no rhyme or reason and story beats are doled out as if with a broken ladle.

Let's not forget this is a "horror" film, though. Our characters find themselves in a forest wherein lurks Dr. Chopper and his two "scary" henchwomen, who are supposed to be some kind of Frankencreatures but look exactly like Valley Girls with fake blood dabbed beneath their Supercut shags. I've honestly seen scarier make-up on eight-year-olds out trick-or-treating on Halloween.

And again we get a whiff of the costume designer's malodorous handiwork, as Valley Ghoul One prances around in a pseudo-Victorian polyblend smock while her buddy wears a nondescript ensemble that might have been almost fashionable in less hip corners of the 1980s.

Dr. Chopper makes the big fashion statement though, looking like a Crisco cowboy who got lost in the woods on his big black Harley, clad from head to toe in zippered black S&M leather.

If this sounds intriguing, by all means check it out. There is plenty of side-splitting and belabored dialog (like the precious "elephant's graveyard" scene or the "intellectual" discourse on Ginsburg).

To be fair, the cinematography is good, considering what was put before the camera, and the actors strive (with wildly extreme results) to make something from a scrap heap of clichés and inanities. You do have to wonder if they were really really stupid or just blindly desperate, not to walk off the set after catching one glimpse of the ridiculous-looking villains with their 99 Cent Store weapons.


20 years ago Dr Chopper(yes, he is driving a chopper as well as chopping people up) disappeared when the police found dead bodies at his clinic. Since then people have been disappearing around Lake Tanoka(or something) and dead bodies/parts of bodies has been found all over the place. Turns out Dr Chopper needs body parts to stay alive and has been taking them from strangers, like pair of lesbians and 5 sorority girls on their initiation(you get the picture) traveling through Lake Tanoka. When a bunch of teenagers decide to go camping they are bound to clash with the doctor.....

Well, if you wanna waste some time this is the right choice. Acting varies from really bad to mediocre with the girls tripping and falling all the time for no apparent reason. Every chance of showing skin is taken but without actually showing anything at all. The same goes for the special effects who are pretty pathetic with every slash filmed in an angle so you cant see it but there are a lot of body parts in the movie all drenched in blood(probably to cover up how sad they really look ). The plot is pretty faulty and dialog rather sad. Only time I laughed was when Dr Chopper said: "Howdy!" when trying to be scary. Don't watch this one if your not a hack'n'slash freak. Even then I would recommend you to watch something better.


I started watching this because i thought it was a really shitty porno. As i kept watching the only thrill i got from this movie was finding out what the name of it was so i could look it up and rip on it. I just finished it and have considered ending my life knowing that someone actually made this movie.

For the people who commented on this movie as having a good script and great acting, my words of wisdom for you are that you probably have no friends because you were in the movie. You are probably wishing you had all that time back of your life that you wasted on making this movie.

There is no way that this is a serious movie. There was an old guy that gets stabbed and it doesn't even hurt him at all. And when everyone else gets stabbed they drop dead.

It was probably important that these people killed random people and ate them and also hung out with an 80 year old man that wanted to put the parts into his body.

My favorite part was when the old man found the "hemoglobens" or however you spell it because that made the movie seem very intellectual and probably helped to reach the older crowd.

What really blew my mind that they decided to throw in that random scene about the college girls going into the woods looking for fake skulls.

If you do attempt to see this movie, you should probably fill up your bathtub and drop your hairdryer in it and be ready to jump in.

THIS IS A MUST SEE!!!....for anyone who believes there life could not get any worse because this will help you realize there are people out there(the makers of this movie) who are even more pathetic and are going no where in life.


Dr. Chopper starts shortly after teenager Nicholas' (Robert Adamson) mum has died, he is still cut up about it but every cloud has a silver lining & in this case it appears that his mum owns a log cabin at Lake Tatonka the self proclaimed 'friendly place for happy people' that she didn't tell him about. So Nicholas together with his girlfriend Jessica (Chelsey Crisp) & three friends, Jimmy (Butch Hansen), Reese (Chase Hoyt) & Tamara (Ashley McCarthy) head out there for a fun weekend. Unfortunately things don't go according to plan, the cabin turns out to be little more than a run down shed & their neighbours turn out to be Dr. Chopper (Ed Brigadier) & his two nurses who go around killing anyone they meet to use them in horrible experiments...

Going straight-to-video/DVD Dr. Chopper was edited & directed by Lewis Schoenburn & this film seems to be having a hard time here on the IMDb with some pretty harsh reviews, while I think Dr. Chopper as a horror film is pretty worthless I don't think some of the criticism I've read is entirely justified. The script which takes itself very seriously is credited to Ian Holt (whether he likes it or not...) who has a role in the film as Detective Crocker according to the IMDb cast list although I can't remember any character of that name, maybe he was one of the cops at the start? Anyway, the basic story is alright I suppose although it's a tad dull & lasts for too long, it's typical slasher fare with some sort of evil character running around bumping off our annoying American teen cast, you know the drill by now. Besides some brief & undeveloped nonsense about Dr. Chopper using body parts to replenish his own deteriorating body there's not much story here & the script seems to exist solely to invent situations for girls to take their tops off, there's the inevitable sex scenes, there's a sequence where some girls have to complete a sorority house initiation topless & there's even a couple of lesbians here as well one of whom is seen without her full compliment of clothing. Oh, & when I say topless I mean they aren't wearing any tops but they all keep their bras on so you may want to bear in mind there isn't any actual full frontal nudity in Dr. Chopper at all. So there you have it really, it's an average story that has a mildly surprising twist at the end which is wasted, is populated with poor clichéd dumb character's that exist only to showcase some cheap gore scenes & girls in bras. To be honest I expect a little bit more from my films but then again maybe I'm just being picky.

Director Schoenburn does OK actually, this is by no means the worst looking film I've seen although it still looks cheap. There's no style here, I didn't think it was scary & there's no atmosphere either. The gore is restrained & restricted to some dead bodies & severed limbs, there's nothing new here or any particularly convincing special effects. Dr. Chopper is also one of those films where character decisions & motivations are ridiculous.

Technically this is a little rough around the edges but is reasonably well made on what was probably a really low budget, the forest locations are suitably isolated although the cops office looks like someones front room & the two nurses outfits at the start look like stripper outfits. The acting is alright, it could have better but I've certainly seen worse.

Dr. Chopper indeed features a doctor who rides around on a chopper motorbike but unfortunately that just isn't enough to satisfy me, despite it being a reasonably competent production the lack of any real gore, nudity or a decent plot sinks it without trace.


The acting was very sub-par, You had Costas Mandalar acting like Triple H's dumber forest ranger brother, a Scott McMahon look-alike as his depute who I guess your supposed to care about but there is no emotional involvement anywhere. You have the Stupid lesbian, Not that I have any thing against lesbians, i don't just stupid ones who keep running around in a punisher like shirt and a grunge like hat who keeps asking if anyone saw her dead lover.

The Villain could be scary and there is a morality tale somewhere about trying to fight age and death but it is lost in this movie. Costas Hurst Helmsley points out to the soon to be victims the way back into town, while obviously there are city lights behind him.

Also A mispronunciation of Ed Gein but pronounced it Gine. As a citizen of Wisconsin. We have had our share of Monsters Gein,Dahmer, and McCarthy, but if your going to use it pronounce it right.

God Why do i watch all these terrible films. Oh yes I am a glutton for punishment and I watch these so you don't have to.


This movie is by far one of the worst B-movies I have ever seen. There are no plot twists at all. Though the acting is decent, the storyline is terrible. There are also many mistakes in the movie, and it was bothersome to watch. For any of you who like horror movies, slasher movies, or even B-movies, I don't recommend this to anyone at all. Most of the movie is focused on pointless killing, in ways that aren't even worth discussing. This movie could very well be compared to a crappy remake of Jeepers Creepers, which, too, wasn't that great of a movie. For anyone who wishes to spend a day at home, watching poorly made movies, this one takes the cake.


Possibly one of the best, most horrible b movies ever, as in it's so bad and random,it's kinda hilarious and i don't know how to feel about it..reminds me of Cabin Fever..there's just something about that kid jumping off the porch doing karate and yelling 'pancakes' that's intriguing. Since a lot of people have already outlined the plot and everything all i'm going to do is sum up the quality of the movie with one quote: "I'm the park ranger who's going to f*ck you up". yeah, enough said?. If you're looking for quality or a really scary movie, i don't recommend it. but if you like these sorts of films then I guess you would enjoy it..I don't know how, but I guess some people would.


i paid $2.00 for this piece of crap, i want my money back. it is a d grade horror movie that isn't so groovy

There are many MANY floors in this film, including the acting, the lack of actual horror, the lack of nudity (which besides the starting Nurse (porno outfit) and the still breathing nude corpse flash, there is none.

The sound track maybe is the best thing because it has some upbeat sorta guitar riffs/tracks.

There are your usual typical characters, the jock, the jocks woman, the nerdy guy (who looks more like a jock), the rookie cop/ranger (who has the biggest gap in his teeth i wanted to slip a few dollar coins into that gap..or go for a field goal) the mysterious fella and the Pure girl.

The make up was pitiful with side views of dr chopper showing a clear "make up line"and natural skin tones, the cover art to the DVD is clearly photoshop/enhanced to make the cover more enticing as Dr chopper looks like an old "plopper" The scraggy women that hang around Dr chopper are not explained and or look convincing like the rest of this movie.

The plot twist was VERY predictable and the abundance of bad looking FAKE limbs was laughable, what did they think,.... um throw some limbs around and some fake blood and you have a horror film.

Dr chopper himself is the most stupid character created I've seen in a while, though original i believe that the creator of this film was strained for ideas and possibly tried to use the rhyme Doctor and chopper (bike) and thought "bingo" ill make a crappy movie about that.

I've seen worse before..... but this is just plain bad.. everything about it is bad... the lack of suspense...the lack of actual horror or character development... the lack of a decent storyline ...the only thing good about this film was when it finished. This film doesn't fall into the category ïts so bad its good" for me either/

Overall 2/10 the director/writer/editor should know better.


Ugh, bad, bad, bad, but I have seen worse which is why I gave it a 2 instead of a 1. Just got finished watching this movie and I thought it was about as rotten as the flesh on Dr. Chopper's face. The worst line of the movie had to be "I like to introduce you to someone... meet my inner b*tch" which consisted of the lone survivor of the fantastic 5 group throwing a trash can at Dr. Chopper and then falling on the stage. Second worst line, "I'm the park ranger that's gonna f*ck you up" What, this freak ain't even a cop????? Did anyone else notice how everyone instantly dies from the magic gut stab (no one dies that quick from a gut stab, I know this cause I see them frequently in the operating room) except super park ranger. Dude had like a bucket of blood poor out of that wound, writhes around on the floor some, and then comes in for the finale to take a parting shot at Dr. Chopper while inner b*tch lies cowering on the floor. And if that don't beat all, he doesn't even have the decency to die then like everyone else. Inner b*tch helps him limp outside and proceeds to tell him not to die while she runs for help cause he's like her only friend left alive now. Since when did these two become friends? I don't think a frantic meeting in the woods where he tells you to head for the city qualifies as getting to know you time but whatever.

Only watch this movie if there's nothing else own and you have nothing else to do with your time.


First of all, I'm upset there's no choice of a "0" out of 10.

I was bored tonight, and while flipping through the channels, I see Dr. Chopper. With there being nothing else on, I decide to watch it, expecting it to be just another crappy horror movie, with a similar plot to Cabin Fever.

Man was I wrong...Dr. Chopper made Cabin Fever look like it should have won numerous Academy Awards. May I remind you, Cabin Fever contains a scene of a little hick boy doing roundhouse kicks off of a porch screaming, "pancakes!!", characters who leave their dying friend in a tiny shack to bleed to death, and Shawn from Boy Meets World mistakenly fingering a hole in a girl's thigh.

So needless to say, Dr. Chopper was a big, smelly pile-o-crap. It wasn't even funny crap. It reminded me of a horror movie I had to make in 8th grade, called "The Campout". Except for the fact that "The Campout" had a better script (we wrote it about an hour before filming), better actors, plots, bloody scenes, and camera work. I was hoping to get some laughs out of a poorly-made horror film, but instead I could only watch in astonishment as I thought to myself, "Was this made by 8th graders?".

The acting was horrible, the events and different little subplots were thrown together and didn't make sense, and the gore and violence was very minimal. I liked how that from a small stab wound, people died instantly, and the only weapons the killers had were small pocket knives...if you're going to make a horror movie, at least give the killer(s) an insane killing device.

Also, what the hell was the point of the sorority girls hazing their pledges? Good way to bring in some scenes of girls running around in their bras, even if they have no relevance to the story whatsoever. And I must say, my favorite line was when the blonde says to Dr. Chopper, "I'd like to introduce you to someone....my inner bitch." Her "inner bitch" then proceeds to grab a garbage can, throw it at Dr. Chopper, miss, and back up in terror of the killer.

Wheww....well that was a long one, but I felt that I needed to express my feelings on how absolutely horrible this "movie" was. I know that everyone has their own opinions, but if anyone rates this movie higher than a 2, they should be shot to Hell...

...seriously.


This movie sucked on so many levels! Ever seen the Dentist? This movie made The Dentist look like a masterpiece. I do not recommend this movie to anyone, unless of course you are really really really really really bored, then maybe. It was SO corny. The killer reminds you of the grandpa from the monsters, except he has goggles on. When Jessica said "I want you to meet someone, my inner bitch, I thought she was going to kick his butt, however all she did was throw a frig-gen trash can at him. I was very disappointed. And when the ranger had the crying scene about his wife, I SO felt the pain behind his tears.........NOT!!!!! So before watching this movie, grab a blanket and a pillow, get comfortable because it is very relaxing.


Stupid horror film about five 20 somethings (3 guys, 2 girls) going to this place in the middle of nowhere. What they don't know is Dr. Chopper and his female assistants attack and kill anybody who ventures in their woods. They use their body parts for some experiments...or something. Also five college girls and two lesbians are thrown in to be killed off and show some cleavage.

Pretty desperate. The story is confusing and boring; the gore is laughably fake; Dr. Chopper and his assistants overact TERRIBLY; there's some dreadful black "humor" in here and people just stand around while their friends are being attacked or just stand there and let the people kill them.

This was pretty insulting. There are a few pluses. A twist an hour in was pretty good and the five young actors are actually good! Chase Hoyt is great as Reese; Butch Hansen is OK as Jimmy; Ashley McCarthy is also good as Tamara and Robert Adamson has his moments as Nicholas. Best of all is Chesley Crisp as Jessica--she was excellent! Some of the dramatic scenes between these five were well-acted and interesting. Unfortunately the dialogue wasn't really there for them. I'm giving it a 4 for their performances--but nothing else here is worth mentioning. Hopefully these actors will get roles worthy of them.


Low budget "films" like this just give me hope as an aspiring screenwriter. In other words, if there are people out there who are willing to finance a piece of schlock like this, than there's certainly much more than a glimmer of hope for someone like myself who can actually write stories. This film is right up there, or should I say "down there" with the Ed Wood's of the world. The story, if you can call it that, and the dialog, not to mention the sophomoric acting, is a travesty toward the genre itself. Someone should have driven a stake through this stinker while it was still just on paper. It follows that since literature has pretty much been killed off, that film should follow. In order to have a good or even just passable movie, you must have at the very least decent writing. The legendary Curt Siodmak springs to mind. They used a lot of his stories for low budget films way back when but they still come off today as good, serious entertainment, i.e. "Donavan's Brain". The cast for this "work" should seriously consider going back to work at their respective hamburger joints or shoe stores and forget about any future feeble attempts at appearing in front of a camera. Avoid this one like the plague itself!!!


I have seen many - possibly too many straight-to-video, no budget slasher films and have developed a taste for the "good ones", or the ones that are less sucky, as ridiculous as that sounds, hahaha. DR. CHOPPER, is what I kindly like to refer to as... absolute crap. Nothing about it is enjoyable - the acting sucks, the characters suck, the killer sucks, the gore is minimal... and sucks. It is about a group of college friends who drive out to a newly discovered family cabin, owned by the parents of one of the kids. It is meant to be a relaxing retreat, but little do they know that a deathly ill former plastic surgeon-gone bad, along with his two female assistants, search for usable tissue to save the doctor. His name is Dr. Chopper since he rides around on a motorcycle and of course, chops. This is just a terrible movie, not worthy of anyone's time. Enough said.


This film is terribly bad. Kevin Spacey is a really great actor, he shines in LA Confidential, American Beauty, Usual Suspects, 7 etc.. But this is truly rubbish, he came nowhere near a decent Irish accent, maybe he should have practiced it with Kate Hudson while she was doing About Adam. To Irish people this film is laughable and even worse, its quite irritating for several scenes. I think the producers made this film hoping the target audience (non-europe)would had never seen or heard of the 'General' or Martin Cahill and be enthralled in an intriguing and entertaining story. Total crud!!


The German regional-broadcast-station WDR has shown both "The General" and ODC. On Saturday I've seen "The General" and I thought, it wasn't very bad, but not very good too. But yesterday I've seen ODC and I switched it off after about an hour. Although Kevin Spacey was the main actor the movie was totally confusing and seems restless. "The General" told the story straight and ordered, but ODC just wanted to be cool. There is a reference on the Guy Ritchie Movies "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels" and "Snatch", but doesn't have the Coolness of these movies.

So, in the end I would rate it 3 of 10!


I'm a big fan of Kevin Spacey's work, but this is a sub-standard film. If you think it looks interesting, or you saw it and liked it, go and check out John Boorman's "The General". It is basically about the same guy, but is far superior in every way (and doesn't suffer from the Hollywood glorifications).


an oirish film not made for an irish audience. with fiorentino, baxendale and spacey each incapabable of a half decent oirish accents the powers-that-be had but one choice - force the irish actors to adopt equally bad oirish accents, reducing the whole thing to the lowest common denominator.


Kevin Spacey is without a doubt one of the best actors of the 90s. After his performances in The Usual Suspect, Se7en and American Beauty, you expect more and more from him. That is why Ordinary Decent Criminal is a huge disappointment.

Michael Lynch is the most artful criminal in Dublin who is never in a bad mood. His next heist becomes an obsession when his partners start questioning Michael's ability to plan everything perfectly, although this is the only thing he does when he isn't playing good father at home.

I guess, it's partly my fault for not paying enough attention to the thousand plot details which sadly turn out to be the "essence" of the film. I gave the movie a chance by calling it a parody and.... well, parodies are always funny, no matter what they spoof or how they do it. So, it wasn't after all a complete parody on purpose. It's just a different con movie that desperately tries to be funny and fails.

Unlike some of his "colleagues", Ordinary Decent Criminal depends too much on story development and logical continuity, forgetting what's the main reason, the viewer has picked this kind of movie - to be entertained. This is definitely not entertainment. It includes one of the most ridiculous scenes ever - the introduction of Michael's TWO wives. I don't know whether it's some kind of a mindless metaphor or strange, dark humor, but the chicks are sisters. Remember, Spacey's character has kids.

Ordinary Decent Criminal is complex and confusing. You are not waiting for a funny scene. Instead, you carefully follow the dialog, because there is a big possibility of losing yourself into the boring, pale universe, the film has inhabited.

Let's go back to Spacey. I wonder in what condition he has been, signing for that movie. It's not miscasting, but something much worse. An insult to his work in American Beauty, released an year before Ordinary Decent Criminal. The character Michael is eccentric and talkative. Spacey is almost pathetic at times. The only cure for this, is thinking of Lester Burnham and Roger Kint.

Writer, Gerrard Stembridge should definitely re-consider his screen writing abilities and be more objective this time. Because, the dialog is very weak and the scenes are often pointless. And we are still talking about a comedy.

Ordinary Decent Criminal is a really bad crime comedy which does not deserve your attention.


Kevin Spacey is my favorite actor of all time, he is without a doubt on other's lists as well when it comes to great actors. He even pulled off a good Irish accent in Ordinary Decent Criminal as well. But Kevin Spacey, as a Mafia leader? Or even a burglar? I'm not so sure he could go that far. The movie to me just didn't make any sense and the some of the story just didn't feel solved to me.

I know once again that IMDb is going to make me write ten more lines. But I'm not so sure on what I could say about this movie because I am still trying to figure it out. Silly, isn't it? But I'm pretty sure that more than a few of you IMDb users have been in the same predicament as I am in right now where you just want to say a line or two about a movie, but now you have to do ten lines? Wow, that should do it. :D

3/10


Well,

First of all, as many reviewers have pointed out - this is a rip off of the Martin Cahill story - first represented by the BBC and by the John Boorman film "The General" - which is a great film and far, far superior to this one.

Speaking as a native British person, the supporting cast to Kevin Spacey was really good in terms of British and Irish acting talent, especially Peter Mullan - but it was totally wasted. The characters were c**p! And as for Kevin Spacey - didn't come across as a loveable rogue but as nothing really substantial or significant.

Not a lot to redeem this film. The best bits are the gags and tricks nicked from the other films it rips off. Compare notes on this film and "The General" - I'd be interested to see what others think.


After the general, a film that romanticized the life of Dublin gangster the general to such heroic proportions that it made the average Dublin person sick, along come Kevin and his attempted portrayal of Mr. Lynch or martin Cahill, aka the general, the acting is so bad that this crime drama becomes a comedy for the native Dub, and a tragedy for the Kevin Spacey fan. in short, is the movie worth a look.... No, unless u like bad acting with hilarious 'proper Irish accents, ah sure to be sure to be sure'. The story is ripped off from the commercially successful 'The General' which, despite is glorification of a well known Dublin animal in Martin Cahill is still worth a look, on a domestic scale because it shows real working class Dublin, and on an international scale because of he true Irish acting and killer cast, including John Voight. All in all, 'Ordinary Decent Criminal' is anything but a decent film. Avoid.


"Ordinary Decent Criminal" is sort of based on the exploits of Martin Cahill, already the subject of John Boorman's 1998 film "The General". Cahill had a rough upbringing in a slum area and graduated from petty crime to armed robbery with honours. He justified his criminal career by pointing out his poor background at every opportunity. This is a common excuse for criminals that conveniently overlooks the thousands of slum-dwellers who don't turn to robbing post offices and selling guns in order to make ends meet. Cahill made fools of the police and local authorities, not to mention the IRA, which earned him a sort of "Folk Hero" status as well as making him many enemies. However, he was basically an amoral, self-serving thief.

My primary problem with "ODC" is that the protagonist is made out to be a lovable Irish rogue. Kevin Spacey does a good job portraying Michael Lynch with a blend of oily charm and quiet menace, but the character is too amoral and selfish to be seen as any sort of hero, even an anti-hero.

The film is well shot and well acted by a fine cast, but what lets it down is the script. Writer Gerard Stembridge can't make up his mind; is he writing an Irish "Lock Stock" or a grittier treatment of Martin Cahill's thieving career? That's the problem when a writer bases his central character on a real person.

It's also unfortunate that "ODC" followed the cinema release of John Boorman's "The General", which was a more accurate portrayal of Martin Cahill's story. Cahill was a cunning thief who knew the value of good publicity, so it's not surprising that his exploits got the movie treatment.

What IS surprising is that a studio was prepared to take Cahill's story and give it a happy Hollywood-style ending. Kevin Spacey's charismatic-twinkly-bigamist-thief Michael Lynch gets to ride off into anonymity on his motorcycle in "ODC". In the real world, Martin Cahill was executed by the IRA, just to prove that no-one makes fools of an out-dated, sectarian and corrupt para-military organisation and gets away with it.

The real Cahill would never have walked away from his notoriety because it bolstered his "Man of The People" self-image. Having Michael Lynch give up everything to avoid death in "ODC" is a cop-out ending to a weak and shallow movie.


one of the worst excuses for an irish accents i've heard. from a truly great actor too. its a bad irish accent not to mention a dublin accent (which is completely different) anyway the film is loosely based around the story of ganglord martin cahill and its done much much much better with brendan gleeson in the title role in THE GENERAL


I was really looking forward to watching this film. It had all the ingredients of a great tongue in cheeker, but it just didn't come together AT ALL. Kevin Spacey's accent was tolerable except that sometimes he forgot to use it and I would rather NOT have had to listen to Linda Fiorentino's pale attempt. She and Helen Baxendale were totally lacking in charm and personality, thankfully their screen kids had loads, so you could find at least some members of his 2 families endearing. You could have strained spaghetti with the plot and I'm sure that the script was written by some adolescent schoolboy in a high school English competition. That said, when I wasn't cringing, I was smirking so it wasn't a totally wasted 90 minutes. I did find the superimposing of Kevin's face on the painting very clever and quite funny. Maybe I'm being a bit harsh but I was expecting a bit of quality viewing and it just never came.


This film is really quite odd. Clearly certain *events* portrayed identify the main protagonist as the Dublin criminal known as "The General" but almost everything else is just wrong. We are not talking of a distortion of ancient history...but a complete distortion of irrefutable, documented facts. The question indeed is why? The garda are shown as latter day Keystone Cops, his gang as non-menacing, and the man himself as..well Kevin Spacey. Almost pure fiction anyway, why bother to try to give a semblance of realism? Having said all that, it is a poor exercise *any* way you want to look at it. Not worth a second of anyone's time.


"Ordinary Decent Criminal" is sad because it is obviously trying to succeed and equally obviously hasn't a chance in hell of making it apparently owing to the absence of a clear sense of purpose. A abysmal failure at droll Irish comedy with Spacey as a thief who enjoys outsmarting the cops and his competition becoming a sort of folk hero in his own mind, this flick manages to be mildly amusing when it's trying to be funny, slightly more than boring when it's trying to be interesting, and forget sentimental or poignant or endearing though it takes shots at those qualities as well. "Ordinary Decent Criminal" has a clumsy screenplay, naive direction, journeyman execution, thin story, poor casting, mediocre acting, and eventually becomes lost in itself and sinks into a mire of hopeless mediocrity. Pass on this one. (D)


To keep from being bored during "Love and Sex," first I tried to think of all the movies this was imitative of: "Breaking Up" with Russell Crowe and Salma Hayek (though that had a more original ending), "About Last Night" with Rob Lowe, and a lot of TV shows.

Second was admiring just how gorgeous Framke Janssen is so I couldn't believe for a nanosecond that she could have a problem getting a date. She is certainly in line to give Julia Roberts a run for her money, literally-- and wasn't Julia in some movie with this same plot or other?

Third was trying to figure out why the writer/director bothered to give Jon Favreau's character the Jewish name of Adam Levy; he even refers admiringly to eating a ham sandwich.

Fourth was trying to figure out why some critics had given this a good review which is why I was in the theater.

(originally written 9/2/2000)


Kate is a jaded young woman who has trouble meeting and dating guys. Throughout the movie, you get to meet several of her loser boyfriends. And throughout the movie, you are subjected to Kate's cynical negative outlook on love and relationships. This negative viewpoint is continued throughout and presented as Ultimate Truth. I had a real problem with this. Why would anyone want to be taught about love, life, and dating from someone who is obviously so messed up? It would work if that was the joke, but it is not. For the jokes in the movie (which are neither funny nor original) to work at all, you have to believe what Kate is saying: that all relationships inevitably end up with bad or no sex, that the highest level a relationship can evolve to is when you are able to fart in front of your partner... You get the idea.

There is no movie in recent memory that comes close to upsetting the stomach as much as Love & Sex. Why did the filmmakers waste their time on such trash? Every joke in Love & Sex is something that I have experienced in another movie or in my own life. There is NOTHING original or creative about the story, the production, or the style. It is cynical, dumb and pointless. Mind numbing!


This film has a really weird mixture of genres - toilet humour and action in one. It doesn't really pull it off - it should have stuck to one genre. The best thing I can say about the movie is that the dog in it is cute.

The most disturbing sequence is in the middle of the film when Moses (Sandler) and Carter (Wayans) decide to stop off at a hunting lodge/motel. I'm not quite sure what the point of this sequence is - it just seems gratuitous in the extreme. The proprietor of the hunting lodge ("Charlie") is a very nerdy looking guy. For some reason, Moses starts a conversation with Charlie about porno, jacking off, homosexual sex, sex in a threesome... Charlie's photo of his "wife" appears to be Charlie dressed in drag. There is no reason for this really juvenile dialogue and scene. Anyway, the whole scene seems to be directed to the moment when a naked Moses ends up with Carter's gun up his butt and Charlie sees them through the window. It all reeks of school boy humour about homosexuality - horrified and titillated all at the same time - which I don't find funny at all.

I have a friend who is always raving about Adam Sandler movies. This is the first one I've seen - after this, I'm not sure I want to see any more.

BTW, this is my husband's account - he's seen Happy Gilmore, and he tells me it's quite good - maybe I should give Sandler just one more chance.

Countess Skogg