Rating: 2 out of 10; 1/2 Star

Part II

More problems with the film:

(6) MAJOR FUDGING OF HISTORY, 1982 NCAA Finals, UNC vs. Georgetown - In the film, Jordan hits the game winning jumper and the clock runs out. The film skips what happened in real life after Jordan hit that jumper. Jordan hit the jumper with about 16 seconds left on the clock, to put UNC up by one. Georgetown brought the ball up past half-court with about 9 seconds left on the clock, and Georgetown's Fred Brown inexplicably passed the ball to UNC's James Worthy, who raced to the other end of the court and was fouled. This sealed the game. The film pretends like it never happened, because when the film shows time run out in the game, Jordan is in the same spot where he hit his jumper, and his teammates rush to him to congratulate him. (7) No 1984 Olympics? (8) Chicago Stadium, 1984 - The film tries to get across the point that home attendance was very low for the Bulls before Jordan's arrival. It over-exaggerates. The film shows part of a game during Jordan's rookie year. There are about 200 people in the stands, and most of the people at the press table seem to be either half asleep or distracted by boredom. In reality, the Bulls averaged around 6,000 fans per game at home when Jordan first joined the team. The film strains credibility here. (9) Broxton - who is this guy? The film has some fictional hotheaded team member named Broxton confronting Jordan early in Jordan's career, grilling Jordan about not being a team player. This guy doesn't appear in any official NBA guide I've seen. (10) Chicago, 1986 - Jordan is completely bald, for reasons undisclosed; in reality, Jordan didn't actually start shaving his head bald until around 1989, after about two years of showing thinning hair in spots; Jordan inherited his father's follicles. (11) No foot injury in 1986? This seems like an important career circumstance not to skip over; Jordan missed 64 regular season games during the 1985-86 season, but came back for the playoffs to score 63 in a 1st round game vs. the Celtics. (12) The gratuitous leg shot of Robin Givens getting into a taxi - I've got no problem with this, visually; however, I'm sure Juanita Jordan might have something to say about it. (13) Chicago, 1989 - Phil Jackson becomes the Bulls' head coach, and the Bulls have a title contending team; what happened to Doug Collins? what happened to the Charles Oakley for Bill Cartwright trade? we should have at least seen some sort of transitional montage, as the team gets better with players like Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, etc; nothing about playoff frustration against the Celtics and Pistons? (14) Zen master, Phil Jackson - yeah, Phil is a philosopher and a spiritual guy, but here he's a cross between Mr. Miyagi and Yoda; I doubt Phil is that wacky, and he is a very good basketball mind. (15) 1991 Playoffs - In the film, an announcer says, "The Bulls down the New York Knicks and are on their way to the first NBA championship series in their history."; the Knicks were actually the Bulls 1st round victims in the 1991 playoffs; Philadelphia and Detroit followed in the Eastern Conference. (16) 1991 on-court Championship celebration is overly staged. (17) United Center/Chicago Stadium - The Bulls did not move into the United Center until the 1993-94 season, during which Jordan was temporarily retired; in the film, it is spring 1993, and Jordan pulls into a stadium parking lot, where he talks with some kids; you can make out a partially obscured sign in the background, which says, "ED CENTER"; the Bulls played in Chicago Stadium during the 1992-93 season, as the United Center was still under construction. (18) The aforementioned kids Jordan talks with in the stadium parking lot - those kids could never have just walked into the player parking lot for Chicago Stadium or the United Center. (19) 1993 Eastern Conference Championship series - The film has an announcer claiming that the Knicks have just defeated the Bulls in the 3rd game of the Eastern Conference Finals; this is wrong; The Bulls trailed 2-0 after 2 losses in New York, and came back to win the series 4-2. (20) Post 1993 Championship - In the film, James Jordan sits in the arena where the final game of the 1993 NBA Finals was played (America West Arena; Phoenix, AZ) and talks with a character who is supposed to be a long time Chicago Stadium employee (played by Lou Rawls); their conversation seems to indicate that the two are at Chicago Stadium in Chicago, IL; Lou Rawls' character says that he's been working "this place" for a lot of years and before Michael Jordan arrived, you could shoot a cannon through "this place" and nobody would even hear it. (21) Birmingham Barons homerun - Jordan did hit two homers with the Barons in his first minor league season; the film shows Jordan hit one over the fence with the Barons in what appears to be a practice game or batting practice, not an actual game; the film is unclear what the circumstances are. (22) March 1995 - why stop here? "Space Jam" already covered much of this territory; we know that Jordan did not return to the Bulls in top form, and the Bulls lost to Orlando in the 1995 playoffs; we know that Jordan worked hard in the 1995 off-season to get back to top form, and he led the Bulls to 3 more consecutive championships; we know about the final shot of Jordan's career in June 1998.

The major problems with this movie are a bad concept, poor script, poor research, and a cheap budget. Some of the problems are a surprise, considering that Fox Family has money. This film ranks among the worst sports movies of all-time.


Rating: 2 out of 10; 1/2 Star

Part I

This television movie ("Michael Jordan: An American Hero") is a perfect example of an idea that should have gone no further than lunch conversation.

First, I'll address the general task of making average to below-average basketball players look like great players on film. Usually, this fails miserably. Filmmakers like to employ cutaways, basketball doubles, trampolines, 8 foot rims, and the like, to try to make actors look like basketball legends, and it just doesn't come off. This is especially true of film depictions of NBA basketball. The game has a fluid look on television. There are no cutaways for dunks and shots. We see most of the action in continuous shots. Filmmakers, on the other hand, like to show an actor leap into the air or shoot the ball, then cutaway to a low shot of that actor in mid-air or a shot of the ball in the air, then cutaway to the actor throwing the ball through the basket or a shot of the ball going through the basket. All this editing magic does is bring home the reality that we are watching some actor, who is probably an average athlete at best, try to convince us that he is one of the greatest athletes of all-time (in this case, Michael Jordan). It doesn't work. However, that is not to say that films cannot convincingly portray great athletes on screen. It's just easier with most other sports. Football and hockey players play in uniforms that obscure facial details, so real players can double for actors in game scenes. Baseball is televised in the visual cutaway style often employed in film, so filmmakers can use cutaways to make up for athletic shortcomings of actors. Basketball is different. At its highest level, it is a game played by big men in three dimensions, and players do not wear masks or helmets. Audiences can tell when a 6-foot-three actor playing 6-foot-six is dunking on a 9-foot-rim doubling as a 10-foot-rim. It's a matter of scale. So the task of having actor, Michael Jace (6-foot-three)convincingly re-enact playing career moments of Michael Jordan (6-foot-six) had built in problems. As it happens, Michael Jace bears a reasonable physical resemblance to Michael Jordan, when Jace is playing the bald, late 20s, early 30s, Michael Jordan. However, Jace makes a poor late teens, early 20s, Michael Jordan, and the makeup department gives Jace an awful wig (about an inch too long) to play the younger Jordan.

As for the rest of the cast, the familiar faces are all fine actors in their own right (Ernie Hudson as James Jordan, Debbie Allen as Delores Jordan, and Robin Givens as Juanita Jordan). However, they are all completely wrong for their roles, as each bears almost no resemblance to their real-life counterparts. Albert Hall ("Apocalypse Now") would have made a much better James Jordan, JoMarie Payton ("Family Matters") would have made a much better Delores Jordan, and Cynda Williams ("One False Move", "Mo' Better Blues") would have made a much better Juanita Jordan. However, the filmmakers were more concerned with getting higher profile actors to portray Michael Jordan's close family members than with getting good actors who bore some physical resemblance to these family members. The filmmakers probably could have saved money with actors who were better choices for these roles.

As for this film's version of Michael Jordan's life, it's awful. At times, it's unclear as to what event is being depicted, at other times, it inappropriately changes key moments of events for dramatic purposes, and at other times, it's just bad. I shall address some of these problems in the order that they occurred in the film: (1) Jordan's March 1995 comeback game - in real life, it was vs. the Indiana Pacers, at Market Square Arena in Indiana; in the film, it appears to be vs. the New York Knicks in Chicago. (2) Michael Jace takes over the Jordan role as Jordan prepares to head to North Carolina for his freshman year of college; Jace looks at least 10 years older, at this point in the story, than the actor who portrayed Jordan in Jordan's last two years of high school. (3) Dean Smith - some chubby guy with brown hair appears to portray North Carolina's men's basketball team head coach; he looks nothing like Dean Smith; the film doesn't even mention the name "Dean Smith", probably because the filmmakers didn't bother to cast an actor who looked anything like Dean Smith; this seems a major oversight for the role of such an important figure in Jordan's basketball development. (4) Player resemblance - there is not a player depicted in this film who is portrayed by an actor who looks more than remotely like that player, except for Jace as Michael Jordan. (5) No official NBA team logos, court logos, stadium logos - kills reality.

(more later)


The name pretty much butchers this (ahem) movie. Look, Michael Jordan is a great Basketball player & a legend to the NBA (let alone the Chicago Bulls). But he was never a soldier in a war or anything like that. So why would Fox Family intitle this (ahem) movie 'An American Hero'.

That Michael Jace character doesn't really look much like M.J.. But the rest of the movie should be at least worth watching. That is, if it's still on T.V. anymore now that the Fox Family channel is dead & gone.


The trouble with this film is the character played by Laurence Olivier. In the words of other characters in the movie, he is "selfish, self-centered, conceited and egotistical." I would add brash, argumentative and stubborn. In short, I hated his character, which ruined the film for me, even though without those qualities there would not have been a film. Apparently, 1932 audiences agreed with me; Olivier was persona non grata at RKO after this film lost $250,000 at the box office. Olivier went back to England and didn't make another film in America until Wuthering Heights (1939), when his talents were much more appreciated.

Besides being an early film of Olivier, this film is also noted for being the film debut of Bonita Granville, then ten years old. She gives a good performance, and you can see she is a natural born actress. The always lovely Ann Harding is also worth seeing, as well as Florence Lake and Edgar Kennedy, who have a nice bit of comic relief in one short scene aboard ship.


What's up with Laurence Olivier's character? The film begins and he's in love with his new wife (Ann Harding) and he is very charming. However, just a few minutes later, he's moody, unpredictable and a jerk! While the idea of his not appreciating his wife and his job getting him down is good, he just comes off as too selfish and emotionally volatile and you can't understand how ANY woman could love such an oaf. I don't think it's really his fault, mind you, but the script that allowed for no slow and logical progression of his moodiness. When they divorce, it is because Oliver "wants a place of my own where I can work"--without a wife or child getting in his way! Nice guy, huh? In hindsight, I think the film might have been better if they'd had Olivier be nicer--at least until his career has truly hit bottom.

Now time has passed. Harding has remarried--this time to a genuinely nice guy. However, six years later, she meets up with Olivier while in Switzerland and he tries very hard to win her back despite the past. Considering that his child now is happy and only knows the other man as her father and the ex-wife seems happy, you can correctly assume that Olivier's character STILL is a very selfish and despicable man. How Harding or anyone could fall for him or even talk with him again defies common sense and made the movie tough going for me. Harding allowing Olivier the chance to win her back by letting him wine and dine her on the boat voyage back to the States made her a bit despicable in my eyes as well.

I think the movie COULD have worked had Harding NOT created a new life with a new husband. After all, the new husband didn't deserve to be hurt. Secondly, they should have shown Olivier undergo a genuine transformation into a truly decent guy--not the same old guy who has mellowed some because he's now a successful writer.

Overall, the film looks good and has good production values. However, I have a hard time thinking about any film of the time with such convoluted characters and values. After all, Harding DID seem quite wiling to hurt her new husband and going back to Olivier only possibly fell through at the very last minute. In fact, such a film could not have been made after the Production Code was strengthened in 1934, as the behaviors of the characters in the film would have violated the new standards of the film industry. Call me old fashioned, but in this particular case, I longed for the post-code values.


No one can deny that Ann Harding was something to look at, and that is about all this film has to offer. Her co-star is a very young mustachioed Laurence Olivier working very hard to make something of an unconvincingly written character -specifically, a high-strung novelist who resents churning out hack material for quick money to pay the bills while living in a small apartment with his wife (Harding) and a baby daughter. Eventually he can take no more, divorces his wife and goes off to write what he pleases in peace, leaving his wife to marry a long-time admirer (Irving Pichel) who provides her with money and status even though she is not in love with him. Years later the estranged couple meets again in Lucerne. By now he is a successful and famous novelist and impulsively decides to wrest back the woman he had deserted. Throughout the proceedings they bicker and make up with tiring frequency. The movie is mostly talk in the Noel Coward style but without the Coward sparkle. The fights and reconciliations, including the reuniting of a divorced couple at a classy resort, are very reminiscent of Coward's "Private Lives" which had been filmed with disastrous results the year before. As in "Lives," the couple even plays and sings a song from time to time, in this case "What'll I Do?" In short, this is good if you like watching Harding, a great screen beauty, and examining the meticulous craftsmanship of Olivier. Otherwise it's a leaden and witless talkathon.


A limp musical remake of one of the great screwball comedies of all time, "The Awful Truth," this film is a inadvertent valentine to Cary Grant, Irene Dunne and Ralph Bellamy, all of whom are sorely missed. And director Alexander Hall is no Leo McCarey either.

The principal actors look desperate, and flail around ineffectually. The songs are weak, but mercifully short. In order not to make Jane Wyman look bad, there are no women on screen under the age of 35. The fashions are without even historical interest, Columbia's colors are rancid, the sets are claustrophobic, the whole proceedings seem strangely depopulated and the action takes place in a vacuum.

No wonder people stayed home to watch their new-fangled televisions. This is worse than "The Opposite Sex," MGM's musicalization of "The Women." Don't bother.


Based on the original, The Awful Truth, this update is so completely inferior, one has to wonder what the intent was behind remaking the comedy classic. It certainly couldn't have been to improve on it. How can you improve on perfection? And it certainly was not to present better music. Irene Dunne hit the high notes better than either Wyman or the person dubbing her voice. Plus, Wyman's just too squeaky clean looking to play the vamp. She cannot sell it! Milland is a good actor, but here cannot deliver the charm of Cary Grant.

A disappointing waste of time. Do yourself a favor and get the original.


Jane Wyman's recent passing has elicited a great flurry of comments about her strong work ethic, her humble modesty and her strict no-gossip code, all admirable qualities. But her acting legacy leaves little evidence that she was a versatile performer capable of conquering a variety of thematic realms (and her finest performance, in "Johnny Belinda", which won her an Oscar, suffered at the hands of a second-rate script). In this musicalized version of Arthur Richman's play "The Awful Truth", filmed as a straight comedy in 1937, Wyman wears a succession of shoulder-exposing, low-cut cocktail dresses and fur-lined evening wear, yet her wardrobe doesn't match her personality; Wyman's short, old-lady bob and her harried little face never give the impression she's having a good time. She gives the proverbial Jane Wyman Performance, that of a prudish woman forced by circumstance into skirting grown-up female issues. It seems her little-girl tricks of making songwriter-hubby Ray Milland jealous have turned him away, so Wyman, unconvincingly portraying a musical starlet, attempts to woo Milland back with more little-girl tricks. News of the couple's pending divorce brings other men Wyman's way, but naturally she's too uptight to do anything more than a little fancy dancing with them (but then that's understandable, once you get a load of graceless, nervous Aldo Ray on the dance floor). The picture is nothing more than a fashion show set to the type of fake-nightclub music you'd never hope to hear again, and the creaky dialogue probably shamed Arthur Richman (Wyman to her maid: "Is the champagne ready?" The maid: "Ready, willing and able!"). Sure, it's undemanding fluff not meant to be taken seriously, but in the context of Wyman's B-minus career, it is Exhibit A. * from ****


.... because the opening title sequence is very bland . Compare it to the shocking title sequence of the 1960s BBC documentary THE GREAT WAR . As the film goes on we`re introduced to the characters and I couldn`t help noticing that one is Southern English , a couple are Northern English , a couple are Jocks , a couple are Irish while the sarge is a scouser . I`m sorry but I was convinced that British army infantry regiments of the period were composed of " Pals battalions " , that is battalions composed entirely of men from the same home town . Take for instance the 16th battalion of The Royal Scots which was formed in one week and was called " The Hearts battalion " because it was composed mainly of supporters of Hearts football club . The 16th Royal Scots even had 16 Hearts players in its ranks so I don`t believe for a moment that any British army infantry platoon was as regionally mixed as the one here

The more THE TRENCH goes on the more I found myself questioning the accuracy of the movie especially its mood and its sense of time and place . A British made trench in France in 1916 . Since when did the Brits build trenches like the one seen here ? It even has a concrete floor that the Germans would have been proud of which seems to go against I`ve seen in photographic evidence . The film also has an anachronistic cynical air , what on the eve of the Somme ? The British troops had witnessed day upon day of hellish bombardment of the German positions and a lot of British soldiers had begun to feel rather sorry for Jerry , and no one but no one in the British lines had any reason to doubt anything less than a swift , spectacular British victory . Of course one day and 20,000 dead British soldiers later changed these thoughts , in fact some historians describe the date 1st of July 1916 " The day British idealism died " . One final point - As at least one other commentator mentioned THE TRENCH contains a large amount of swear words . It has been documented that one criticism by the real life survivors of BAND OF BROTHERS was that the HBO/BBC drama contained too much swearing and that people in the 1940s used far less profane words than people use nowadays . I`m inclined to believe them and I`m also inclined to believe people in 1916 probably swore less than people in the 1940s so I doubt if the men in the trenches used the " F " word in every sentence

Unfortunately who German bullets didn`t claim on that grim day have been killed by the passing of time so the chances of someone who was there writing into this site and telling us their opinion of THE TRENCH are very remote . A pity because I`d be very interested what they thought of it . As for myself I found the ending moving ( How could it not be ? ) but the rest is rather poor history and a rather poor film that seems to have homo erotic undertones


I really don't need a war movie to be full of explosions to like it, but there was nothing about this movie worth liking. I really couldn't find a story to follow. The characters weren't developed enough for me to feel sympathetic for when they get picked off at the end. The production value of this film was like watching a play on PBS. If the producers and director wanted to give us a feel of what hell they went through in the trench having every other scene with the actors eating isn't going to help. I mean how about making it a true hell hole? I know this is supposed to take place in Summer, but mud, rain, and seeing the actor's breath to show cold, would have really helped. The No Man's Land was so Pristine that I thought the Tele-Tubbies were going to come rolling around. They could have thrown in barbed-wire, mortar shell holes, and the like.

Don't even bother borrowing them from the library. This thing is really disappointing.


It's heart might be in the right place, but this tepid misfire looks like a bad TV schools production in every way. The 'exteriors' are obviously interior studio sets, and not very convincing ones. It's so badly lit that when the film finally goes outdoors to rip off the end of Gallipoli (which it does incredibly badly, like everything else) the change of film stock is so jarring it hurts.

The characters are childish stereotypes talking in unbelievable clichés and the film is frequently just plain wrong about details and attitudes of the average WW1 Tommy: politically correct, maybe, but historically it's a travesty (no Mr Boyd, officers DID go over the top: the highest percentage of casualties was officers, and even many generals died in battle).

But more than being badly directed, looking cheap, getting its facts wrong and going with every cliché Boyd can find, it's biggest sin is that it's just so bloody boring. Bad on every level.

WW1 was a terrible tragedy, and those who died in it deserve better than this terrible, terrible film.


Set in the run up to the disastrous first day of the 1916 Battle of the Somme, The Trench isn't entirely worthless, but it's not a movie, more a filmed play (despite being written as a movie), and a very poor one at that with that 1970s BBC For Schools television look. The decision to shoot on a soundstage is particularly disastrous, since it never looks like anything but a soundstage, and this despite having a good cinematographer (Tony Pierce-Roberts). The decision to never leave the trench until the final scene doesn't really work, partially because we have no indication of the world that awaits them, but largely because Boyd's finale is just too televisual to have any compensating shock value. The abrupt jump to exterior for the last couple of minutes (and very tame they are too) is very noticeable, the film stocks and looks just not matching at all. Borrowing the final image of Gallipoli as well doesn't help.

Characters constantly explain what they're doing to each other despite having been in the trench for several weeks or months; there's no immediacy, no sense of danger, no sense of having to live in a fetid, claustrophobic open grave. Indeed, it's one of the most comfortable British trenches I've seen, with an absolutely level floor for the most part place. The soft barrage - the quietest I've ever heard for shells landing 700 yards away - doesn't help. Boyd really doesn't have any idea of the possibilities that cinema has to offer, either camera or sound. It's real problem, though, is that ultimately it's a polite, clean and determinedly inoffensive film about a dirty, ugly war.

Pluses are some good performances, most notably Daniel Craig and Paul Nicholls, the latter improving after a bland start to establish a credible screen presence. There are a couple of good scenes, too, but it doesn't really have the ring of truth or authenticity - the mood seems more influenced by hindsight than the actual mood in the run-up to the first day. Not only do you never feel you're there alongside them, but there's no sense of people caught up in, and disposed by the mad rush of a cruel history beyond their control. There's no dread, no fear, just observation. The shortfall between the film Boyd thought he was making and the bland one he did is made frighteningly apparent by his interviews in the EPK included on the DVD.


When I saw the DVD standing in the store, I though,finally a movie about WWI, with Danile Craigh and it will be showing us the story of the first big push during the first great war.... NOT, it was more of a school play, and a very boring one. The movie stays in the trench, or shall I say a very obvious indoor set and even the actors make up is badly done. One actor looks more like the unknown guy of "Wham". Please don't wake me up before you go go, but just let me sleep through the whole movie. If you want to see a very good WWI movie, the last battalion will do the job. How this one ever got a rating of more tan 6 ? It blows my mind. All I can say is, I want my 6.95 euro's back that I spend on this terrible movie! Any buyers :o) ?


This was part of Channel 4's Lost Generation First World War season, and it was a huge mistake to show this so soon after their own very good drama-doc about the Somme. It was a mistake to show it at all. Novelist William Boyd is a terrible film director and screenwriter who has no real grip on his subject. Instead of taking a fresh look at the run up to the battle, he uses every old cliché you've seen before in the lips of every old stereotype you've seen before. Most of the cast are so bad I've forgotten their names. Only Daniel Craig and Julian Rhind Tutt come out with any credit. Very badly photographed too, with the trench clearly an interior and far too clean. Just terrible. Channel 4 should have shown something like ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, which hasn't been on telly in years.


I tend to agree with most comments about this film, which I only caught up with recently. The acting is decent, but the script, the set, the anachronistic swearing and the general lack of any feel for the time makes it difficult to watch without sighing heavily. I mainly decided to comment because I scrolled down to find a comment from someone in New York who says this was 'a conventional continuation of the British obsession with World War I as being the most symbolic war'. I wouldn't disagree with that, but she then mentions three films to back up this view: All Quiet on the Western Front (an American film based on a novel by a German, about the German army), Paths of Glory (a film made by an American about the French army) and Gallipoli (made by an Australian about the Australian experience in the Dardanelles). I do think we see this war as symbolic here in the UK, but I don't think we're the only ones.


I purchased a copy of this long, boring slow film after talking to a member of the Memphis Grizzlies NBA basketball team (who will remain nameless) on an airplane trip from Denver back to Memphis. He said it was a great film and one that he enjoyed. I thought to myself that someone of his stature has all the time in the world to watch all kinds of movies (during the basketball off season)... I was surprised to hear him speak to me about his passion for war movies and how much he recommended this one.....

he must've watched a different movie than I did. this movie started out like it was going to be very good, but then no real story developed. It did have some good aspects such as the dirty and gritty movie set, the realistic lingo and the grueling sounds, and it is very historically accurate... they did that stuff well in this movie. ...the problem with this movie is that it just doesn't develop a story, and it turns into 2 hours of nothing. ...I kept waiting for something to happen ..and it never did.

I had to purchase a copy of it because none of the video rental places had a copy to rent... don't buy this movie


The bad news is they keep on repeating them over and over and over and over again until they are no longer funny. At 93 minutes, it feels like it ran 186 minutes.

I don't enjoy bad mouthing a film. These people, obviously, are trying. But with so many "10" votes and comparing it to "Best In Show"; I felt I had to warn people.

The chances are very good you won't enjoy this film. Some of the situations are so forced as to be embarrassing. Maybe a better group of actors could have hidden the flaws. Or perhaps the director could have been less self-indulgence. Or perhaps the money people could have asked for an actual script. Production value is almost nil. Photography is flat. Costumes are off-the-rack Wal-Mart. It has the feel of a quickie vanity project shot on digital video Direct-to-DVD.

As a comedy/satire, it's not that it's bad...it just not funny. And whatever people say, funny is important. This tedious film is not.


A faux documentary about home buying. A mockumentary. I'm sure real estate agents won't appreciate it, but at least it's not an actual documentary and they can get a chuckle or two. All acted, nothing real, though the scenarios feel real enough.

Great acting carries the film, which, while it has an interesting starting concept, pretty much depends on the interactions of the characters to carry it.

So, in short, a good idea half thought out and rescued by the acting. As a short or part of a 2 part film that doesn't require the parts come together it could work. The problem may also be that there were some of the cliché Hollywood scenes that seemed to be built in after the fact for the sake of wider audience appeal, leading to less audience appeal.


Okay, some questions. Why are they sophisticated enough in the "control room" to have oxygen sensors (oxygen sensors?), but no provision for emergency escape in case of power failure? Why does the robot-wench at the end (who Richard Benjamin thinks is real) short out when he gives her water, yet the Yul Brenner robot-gunslinger character (among other robots)can pour whiskey down their mouths? Hmmm. Okay, and I'll buy the "pistols have sensors in them so the guests won't get killed" thing, but there are swords and maces in Medieval World. What, when a violent enemy swings a mace at your head, it has a "sensor" to stop it in mid-air just short of splattering your head? And the robot-gunslinger can hear Benjamin's breathing 100 yards away in the desert to locate him, but somehow can't locate his breathing four feet away in the castle--because the fire is distracting him? Come on. Do I have to go on? One more. If the robots don't have a normal body temperature, how good can sex be with them? Cold! Oh yeah. Watch the Black Knight's hand in the castle near the end. He is supposed to be "off," yet when we first see him, his thumb is turned up. The next time, his hand is hanging down.

Great story concept, but good science fiction demands more plausibility. And what was supposed to be "authentic" is just every Hollywood cliché about the West. I guess you could make some argument that this is some sort of "meta-thematic" cultural commentary about the authentic West vis-a-vis our conception of it as transmitted to us by Hollywood. But, honestly, the film just isn't that smart. And I'm not going to let it off the hook even if I agreed, since it ignores basic nuts and bolts.


The idea of creating a world that looks exactly like the old West is interesting but it could have been done so much better! Yul Brynner is in most films only a joy to watch but he never reaches that high standard here. Richard Benjamin and James Brolin also make efforts to make this movie better but miserably fail.

A $1000-a-day vacation in the Old West is what Benjamin and Brolin will experience as the film takes off. One of the robots is played by Yul Brynner. Indeed as I said quite an interesting thought of a story but it's more or less not so entertaining most of the time with too much small talk.


Very stupid sci-fi film about a future amusement park where you can live out your fantasies in a simulation, either in a Medieval world, a Roman world, or Westworld. The two main characters of the film choose Westworld, although we check in from time to time on the other two parts of the park. In these simulations, there are tons of robots with whom you can interact. They look exactly like people, and you can pick fights with them, screw them, or kill them. Within the first five minutes of the heroes' vacation, they blow away a robot played by Yul Brynner. The next day, he comes back and they shoot him again. The next day, well, the robots kind of defy their masters and refuse to obey. The story makes little sense. Plotholes a'plenty, let me assure you. The idea itself is pretty stupid. I find it hard to believe that anyone would want to pay $1000 a day to be at this resort. Sure, you might point at the rampant sex, but let me point this out: the guns in Westworld don't fire at human beings because they are warm-blooded. Yet they fire at robots, presumably because they are not warm. That means all the tail you get is nothing but cold fish! I realize this film was conceived and made in a hurry, but it's hard not to scoff the results. The only pleasure is watching Yul Brynner die multiple times. Crichton would have much better luck with Jurassic Park twenty years later. 4/10.


Boy have we got a vacation for you! Westworld could be summed up as a very, very, very, VERY BAD movie if it weren't for our Hollywood King, Yul Bryner. Scenes previous to the climax, when the robots went out of control, were very unsatisfying. Though the effects were great for that time, even considerably decent looking back from the 21st century, the body of the movie seemed to be two grown men acting like kids in a toy store. When things went haywire, Yul Bryner became quite the bone-chilling character. I admit, I was at the edge of my seat during the pursuit, and very pleased (and relieved) when Richard Benjamin's character, which to me had the appearance of an attention-deficient 10-year-old with a mustache, showed that he indeed owned intellect. Overall, I gave this movie a 3 out of 10, salvaged by the effects and Yul Bryner's intimidating performance.


Jurassic Park had dinosaurs. Would you pay to see a dinosaur? -Yes, so would I. Westworld has robots which look exactly like humans pretending to be robots. Would you pay to see one of these robots? -No, neither would I.

The whole idea is so fundamentally stupid I am left in awe. If you want to create a phoney American West (or Merrie Old England or whatever), why not just hire actors? If you wanted to visit a phoney American West (or whatever), why not go to a place where at least the people are real? The robots are less convincing and harder to work with than humans would have been; and they offer neither privacy to the client nor monetary savings to the entrepreneur, since there appears to be an army of human operators watching everything from behind the scenes. A whole squadron of technicians is required to get a mechanical prostitute to say, "Yes, squire." This is just ridiculous. Pay a human prostitute her flat fee and she'll most likely throw in a "Yes, squire" for free.

Not just the theme park but the whole MOVIE could have been made without robots. In the end the robots rebel (sigh). But humans are capable of rebelling, too. There is, of course, a particular flavour to a robot revolt, but this flavour is absent from the film. The first few incidents that indicate that something is about to go horribly wrong aren't creepy at all - at that stage the audience is still stuck behind the first hurdle of, "What is the POINT of this theme park, anyway?"

When things DO go horribly wrong it's curiously difficult to care. Clearly they were trying for the feel later captured by "The Terminator" - just as clearly, they failed. It could be because we have been given no reason to be even mildly interested in the main protagonist. We tend to forget about him entirely when he's not directly before our eyes. I forgot about him myself until just now. Who is he, again?


Average sci-fi thriller movie back in 1973.But today due to numerous improvements on the ideas presented here,this movie is only likely to be enjoyed by the most avid sci-fi movie completist.The special effects here was ripped off by numerous 1970's sci-fi TV series like those countless Six Million Dollar Man/Bionic Woman shows.If one has seen those TV shows before seeing this movie,nothing comes out new or fresh.Come to think of it,the Six Million Dollar Man pilot episodes came out before this movie!So actually,the special effects here were not too original after all.Also,they were not content with the Six Million Dollar Man rip off,they even stole the actor who plays Dr.Rudy Wells in said TV show!No sirree.They can't pull a fast one on a guy like me who has seen a lot of movies and TV shows so I am NOT IMPRESSED at all and do not buy into the hype.So now what have we got?Story?The story looks to me like a reject script from a 1960's Twilight Zone episode.The story was too full of plot holes it's not funny.Yes indeed. this one makes a great victim for MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATRE 2000 lampooning fun........


This movie has to be one of the worst movies i have ever seen. This was a unanimous decision between my friends as we watched it the other night on itv1.

Where do i begin. Poor character development, weak plot, uninformative dialogue, poor cinematography and the list goes on. Richard Benjamin's solid performance was the only positive to come out of this rubbish.

Even more disappointingly was the fact that it was written/directed by Michael Crichton, of who i am a fan for his work with Jurassic Park. The movie was a poorly made, and left us unsatisfied with the in-continuity and inconclusiveness of the films ending.

The 10 year boy in me though "hey that's a cool idea", but the adult film-lover in me thought "man that was a waste of 88 minutes". Without being a "spoiler" did it not seem to anyone else that the movie simply ended rather abruptly?? Also, the idea of "robot-prostitutes" so to speak was also a bit disturbing and lame.

Lastly, the fact that the technicians provided no sound reasoning as to why the robots simply freaked-out was really the icing on a terrible cake. You should be ashamed Yul Brynner.


Clive Owen, who appears to be on a crusade to beef up his action credentials ever since taking the lead role in 2007s ludicrously violent Shoot 'em up, adds espionage skills to his leading-man repertoire in Tom Tykwer's globe-trotting thriller The International.

His face set in a permanent grimace, Owen plays Interpol agent Louis Salinger who is investigating the murky and potentially criminal activities of an investment bank run by Danish chief executive Jonas Skarssen (Ulrich Thomsen).

Accompanied by Naomi Watts, who plays New York's assistant district attorney, Owen travels between Berlin, Milan, New York and Istanbul to uncover crucial evidence required to convict the nefarious banker for illicit arms-dealing. These urban environments are gorgeously shot by Tykwer, who successfully captures the unique feel and atmosphere of the different cities as well as the sterile coldness of modern corporate buildings. But whilst Tykwer has a good eye for framing the perfect take, he gets little out of his actors and the sub-standard performances jar against the beautifully shot landscapes.

Owen, who appeared so versatile in his early roles, is becoming increasingly one-note and in this film he simply reads his lines with little emotion and commitment: even in the most intense action scenes, he appears barely more than mildly annoyed, let alone frightened. Watts is similarly unimpressive, and fails to add an ounce of character to her role. Admittedly, neither actor is helped by the clunky script, which forces the leads to deliver exposition instead of realistic dialogue and which includes such philosophical gems as "sometimes you find your destiny on the road you took to avoid it".

Where the film really falls down, however, is with the plot, which asks the audience to buy into the premise that bankers are frighteningly efficient criminal masterminds. In a year that has seen banking profits tumble and financial institutions collapse, it is simply too much to believe that a financier could orchestrate a civil war when it has become obvious that modern bankers cannot even balance their own books.

The International, with its fantastical plot, wastes what was an opportunity for a timely examination of the failings of modern finance. In an age when business news is hogging the headlines and people are becoming increasingly financially literate, the film offers only superficial insights into the corporate world, which was much better examined by Tony Gilroy in Michael Clayton.

Taken simply as Saturday night hokum, however, The International is mindlessly enjoyable, and the exhilarating set-piece gunfight staged in New York's Guggenheim Museum easily matches anything in the Bourne trilogy and is worth the ticket price alone.


The action in this film is extremely implausible and unexciting, the film is formulaic, and the plot is thin as a thrice brewed tea bag. While the acting is fine, the plot is ludicrous.

A man walking down the middle of a busy street in Italy with a gun in his hand, and no one says/does anything.

Full automatic fire in the Guggenheim Museum with no security or cops appearing until conveniently after the "action" -- and 10 minutes after the 1st bullets flew....

The idea that law enforcement would be unable or unwilling to follow this neon-sign lit-up obvious yet laughable string of events.... Well, I'm just going to log my rating as very poor and suggest people do not pay to watch this film.


So much for this being the thriller to watch if you don't like thrillers. I like all kinds of movies except one: long boring ones. And one of my favourite films is The English Patient! That's how boring this film is. Even Clive Owen thinks it's boring that's why he could hardly be bothered to act during the whole thing. Except when he got so frustrated he just acted angry. Save yourself two looooong hours of trying to stay awake and watch something else. I assure you you won't even care what the 'bad guys' are conspiring to do! I'll concede that the ending was a little exciting but after waiting an hour and a half for it, it just didn't seem worth it. I wish I had spent my evening re-watching the terminator movies and picking plot holes in Terminator Salvation like I had planned.


Me and a friend sat down to watch this movie last night, I hardly know where to start... I kept looking on my watch to see how far we were in, and how long it would drag on. Clive Owen made it so terribly monotone, the end of the movie couldn't come fast enough for me. It offered nothing new, nothing surprising, there was not one moment where I thought 'Wow! that's original'! There was no bonding with the characters at all, nor were they likable enough to Not need a background story. We kept on guessing the movie would show what 'it got' in the next 5 minutes, and we kept repeating that to ourselves every 5 minutes, but when the movie ended it still had not happened. To me it was a big let down. I was tricked into seeing it after seeing the positive rating on IMDb, and the positive comments, so I guess enough people like this kinda movies. Just if you're more into a fast paced stories, I suggest you skip this movie.


I went to see the movie seeing an IMDb rating of 7/10. I was deeply bored. The script was all over the place. The plot was underdeveloped and the climax was very ordinary. The only one time I felt captivated was the shooting scene at Guggenheim. Whoever wrote the screenplay left a lot to be desired . The dialogues were so run of the mill. A lot of unnecessary mystery is brought in with trivial solutions. All the reference to funds being used for terrorism were cursory. Terror funding plays little or no role in the plot as such. The movie has NOTHING to do with terrorism. And the lead actor was always tense and monotonous. This is not worth a dime.


All the beautiful cinematography in the world could not save this movie. It wanted desperately to be a legitimate spy thriller, however the best "enemy" it could muster was to fight against a bank. Alright, so in reality banks do fund wars, but instead of teasing out who was behind everything and letting us and the character work out what they're up to, less than half an hour in, Calivini explains absolutely everything we need to know. WHAT? This is not how thrillers work at all. I was not thrilled or on the edge of my seat.

The acting was at best average. There was no character development at all. This is probably the scriptwriter's fault rather than the actors, though, as the the pace of the plot really didn't allow for the characterisations to be expanded upon. The unnecessary traveling around was nice to look at, but at the detriment of having a well structured plot. How convenient the assassin just happens to fly to New York. How convenient that Umberto Calivari will see you right away and explain everything you need to investigate. The plot was full of these kind of things which other thrillers force the characters to use their ingenuity to uncover. These characters just got handed information on a silver platter and pulled out their passport.

The worst aspect of the movie was the fact we had an Interpol agent and an Assistant District Attorney from Manhattan as our heroes. WHYYYYYY. They have absolutely no authority, jurisdiction or resources to be gallivanting around Europe. The part where Naomi Watt's character is all "Fuck protocol" was hilarious because that's what they'd been doing the entire movie. I think the scriptwriters were trying to be creative by not merely having an MI6 and a CIA agent working together, but what they decide fell so horribly flat. Their justification for Naomi Watt's character being there was so horrible tenuous, it reflected the lack of development and depth of the entire movie.

Poor effort.


Most of this movie is the sort of mindless melodrama Hollywood and Paris produced in abundance in the 1930s. The acting is all fine, but the story is strictly from hunger.

At the end, however, you get to see Josephine Baker in a major production number, the sort of musical extravaganza that made her a star in Paris. There, for five minutes, you understand that she was a lot more than just a woman in a banana skirt.

Watch the rest of the movie if you're into melodrama.

But definitely watch the end. It explains the French reputation of Josephine Baker.


What is "Violent Cop"?

A: A boring, ridiculous B-movie (bang-bang, you're dead) masquerading as "art"?

B: A pathetic attempt to jolt the viewer out of his lethargy by repeated shots of graphic violence (mostly heads splattered)?

C: A test by Kitano to see how long he can keep his camera still on his expressionless face, without giving us any insight into his character (apart from the fact that he's a cop, and he's violent)?

D: All of the above?

The choice is yours. But one thing is for sure: by the time (SPOILER WARNING) Kitano gets hit by the 15th bullet or something and still doesn't fall down, it was clear that my second experiment with his films (after the equally awful "Brother") will probably be the last.

For a couple of good scenes (the foot chase and the confrontation on the roof of a building), I give "Violent Cop" *1/2 out of 4.


Takeshi is the master of stretching 15 minutes of story into 2 hours. The first hour of this movie consists mainly of the main character (and others) slowly walking around. I estimate more than 30 min. of the first hour consists of sitting, walking, and 2 characters making small talk with no story significance. Occasionally, Azuma will punch or kick someone and continue to mope around. After more than 1 hour of not a single plot point something finally happens. When the story finally gets going, it is so unremarkable and predictable that you can barely keep your eyes open.


I am sure this will be an unpopular review, but I really did NOT like this movie. It wasn't just because it was EXTREMELY violent (though it was needlessly graphic) but because I just didn't care about the characters and the script lacked finesse. In other Kitano films I have seen, such as Kikujirô no natsu, Sonatine and Zatoichi, there was violence (particularly in the latter two) BUT there was also a certain likability of the main character--even when he was not a "good" guy. In addition, the movies abounded with wonderful little moments and extra touches that gave them charm and color (such as the idiot gangsters trying to shoot things off each other's heads when they got bored at the beach in Sonatine or when the weird guy in the diaper kept re-appearing in Zatoichi). But in Violent Cop, there were few, if any, interesting little touches--just Kitano beating the crap out of EVERYONE! He made Dirty Harry look like Captain Kangaroo! In fact, he was SO over-the-top, that you couldn't help but wonder WHAT police force would keep him one the job. Even the KGB or Nazis would find him a liability due to his MINDLESSLY violent tactics. In other words, such an out of control nut couldn't last very long on any job! I do NOT recommend this movie for kids or teens--or even adults for that matter. All violence and no style make for a poor cinematic experience.


Takeshi Kitano: NO doubt a gifted cineaste but I just can't abide by the sheer brutality of this film. I believe that even artistically fine films must have at least some vestige of humanity to them, otherwise the sheer meaningless violence: what's the point? Kitano can masterly lull you into complaceny with his peculiar sense of rhythm and motion and then out of the blue: bam, bang and splash! Once again it proves that all violence is useless and a waste of time given us on this planet! Violent Cop is somewhat styled after the classics of the ultraviolent genre a la Clockwork Orange (SPOILER: the opening scene here closely relates to the infamous opening sequence from Kubrick's deviants' study). Even the venerable "Dirty Harry" looks like a babe at times compared to Kitano's brutal cop and his fiendish foe. What makes this and other Kitano cop/yakuzza works so horrifying is the utter lack of any redeeming quality: mayhem is employed for its own sake; the sadistic disregard for any human life and/or dignity make Kitano's works hard to watch, his characters hard to feel for. "Sonatine",for example, does have moments of great lyrical beauty, a sense of humor and poetic feeling. In "Violent Cop" there's little or any of it: the camera work is impressive. I love his tracking shots, his pacing: but over all: 1/10 for its debased human "value" 6/10 for its technical/artistic importance


This film is the first and the worst one of Kitano's films. The violence in the scenes are not justified, and the story is very poor. It is certainly because, Kitano did not write the scenario.

According to me, seeing this film is total waste of time, but if you are a fan of Kitano, you should see this film because Kitano is a good actor.


Group of sorority and fraternity pledges must spend the night in a supposedly haunted house as part of their initiation--how much you wanna bet something evil really lurks there? Schlock thriller with terrible cinematography and a draggy pace does boast some talented names in the credits (co-producer Irwin Yablans had a hand in the original "Halloween"), but the drawing card is of course Linda Blair, and she's attractive and professional as always (though looking a bit sheepish with this third-rate material). Supporting cast is less interesting, with Peter Barton perhaps an escapee from the Osmond family. A better director might have worked up more suspense by drawing us closer to the characters--and a better screenwriter might have given the director something to work with. It's a suspiciously mild drive-in quickie, not really deserving of its R-rating, though the big finale is well-staged. * from ****


Greek pledges find themselves in an abandoned mansion that is rumored to still be occupied by the deformed offspring of the owner. This is a typical 80s slasher where nothing really happens until the final half hour. The most unrealistic part of the movie is when the assumed "Big Man on Campus" is hitting on the campus hottie who is ready to bed him, but then he turns around and says "Who is THAT?" in awe of someone else's beauty. The camera then shoots across the room, focusing on little Linda Blair. I've got to give the filmmakers props for setting up certain scenes with horror movie clichés, only to break them down in really unbelievable ways.


Saw this in the theater in 1981. Had a blast.

Saw it when it first got released on video in 1984. Had a laugh.

Saw it on cable last week. Had a fit.

To be fair, it was almost original during its original run. But now that all the clichés have been run into the ground, it's not worth a second look.

Linda Blair was the best actress here. And while Vinny Van Patten has done some good performances, this wasn't one of them. He didn't seem comfortable playing a surfer 'dude.'

For Linda Blair fans/completests only.


I had heard that Hell Night was an overlooked slasher flick - that is true, but it is nothing special or original. In fact it's rather boring. It's just about watchable but to be honest I almost fell asleep a few times and I was glad when it ended. The storyline reminded me a bit of Madman - so nothing too original - but that wouldn't matter if the film had been more interesting. Everything just takes too long to get going and too much time is spent on the boring characters. Linda Blair seems a bit bored all the way through and her acting is rather limp. There is little gore, at least little gore that you can see because it all happens in the dark. And that's another thing this film suffers from - lack of lighting. Sometimes darkness can add to the atmosphere, but in the case of Hell Night it just makes it more boring. There's a decent scene at the end, but really it isn't worth watching the film for.

If you're after an entertaining horror flick it would be best to skip Hell Night and watch something like American Gothic or Scalps instead. There's much better material out there than this.


For a fan of 80's slashers the premise of Hell Night seems like it can't miss. You've got Linda Blair in a serious horror effort, the spooky castle with a horrible past and four school kids who have to spend the night there. And of course there's a deformed murderer there who intends to insure those kids will not live through the night.

This should have been a mini-classic. And apparently some people think very highly of it. Can't imagine why. Despite having a wonderful idea to work from the film doesn't manage a scare or anything resembling a creepy atmosphere or mood. When a film fails on those fronts a hardcore fan can take solace in inventive kills or gratuitous nudity. It scores a point for nudity but the kills are pretty lacklustre, when compared to some classics such as Friday the 13th, Halloween 2 and The Burning for example. Even watered down flicks like My Bloody Valentine and Friday's 2 and 3 come off way better.

I can't find anything good to recommend here. The pacing is way off, the acting is ludicrous and the script pure toilet paper. The effective castle surroundings are not used in any imaginative ways and every effort to create a scary mood gets completely squashed. Blame the director? Well, I always do. Just think what a young John Carpenter or Tobe Hooper (when he did good things) could have managed with this flick.

Not every 80's slasher has something going for it. Hell Night is living proof of that.


I like horror movies, especially old ones. I don't care if the acting, or the story is cheesy as long as I enjoy the movie. But I found this one far from entertaining. The death scenes aren't anything to look at, there is barely any blood, and the suspense just isn't there. The whole movie is covered in darkness, half the time I couldn't see what's going on the screen, because there isn't any lighting. As hard as I tried, I just couldn't get into it, I forced my self to sit through the rest of it hoping it would get better, but there is nothing there. And that's a lot to say, when Halloween is just around the corner, and I was watching this at night with a couple of friends.


Man, this movie sucks! I watched it for Linda Blair and she does nothing but whinge and scream. She doesn't want to be in the house in the first place and her character does absolutely nothing. The other characters are a lame love interest guy and two typical horror movie staples, the horny, drug taking soon-to-be-dead couple who do nothing but have sex until they die. Hell Night is a series of rather lame characters not doing very much interspersed with a couple of rather lame deaths committed by a rather lame maniac.

You learn everything you need to know from a two minute speech at the start of the movie (the bit where the guy explains the history of the house) and from then on the story is at a stand still. People wander off and die every now and again until eventually it's just Linda Blair and the monster guy. She doesn't even try to kill him, she's trying to run away. There is no character development at all. This is the kind of film that gives the horror genre a bad name. It's stupid, childish, boring, badly acted, terribly written and I'm not even convinced the director was looking through the camera.

If you want a classy old slasher film, I recommend Black Christmas. Inventive, scary, funny and well shot, it's everything Hell Night isn't. Hell Night doesn't even appear to be trying.


Here's yet another example of 80's horror with no real soul or originality. But you know what it does have? Linda Blair. That's right, her career careened straight into doing sh*t like this. Oh don't feel bad for me, I got this on video for free. I grabbed it because of it's title, because I think it's funny as all hell. Let's get on with this

And, oh my god! Here we go: During a big ol' college bash, some young pledges for the local sorority and fraternity are forced to spend a night in a big ol' scary mansion that just happens to be just down the road from the college houses, and just happens to be "abandoned." The house was once occupied by a super-crazy mutant family of retards who killed each other and themselves all except for one little freak who managed to survive and got to watch all the others die. Or something like that. Anyway, they start getting all killed, of course, by the mutant sh*thead still in the house Or is there more than one killer mutant dude? SPOILER: Yeah, there is it would seem.

Here's the breakdown:

The Good:

--Believe it or not, the atmosphere isn't bad.

--Shockingly enough, there are some decent scares. Not a lot, thoughand none related to the killer!

Didn't Hurt It, Didn't Help:

--The music ranges from "typical 80's horror fare" (which works well enough) to "total crap" (which sucks).

--The big abandoned house makes for a pretty cool set, but then again, how many other films of this nature take place in some big abandoned house? So it's not real original.

The Bad:

--The acting is pretty damn craptacular. Sometimes it appears to be okay, but usually it's just sh*t.

--Awful dialogue.

--College campus horror? Ooohh!! Original!! Oh wait! No it's not!

--College campus horror with sororities, but no naked college chicks? If you're making cheesy horror, go all out! Damn!

--Unoriginal kills, yet again. Twisted neck? Check. Lopped off head? Check. Killed off-screen? That happens twice. Stabbed with sickle? Okay, I rather liked that one. But the "Children of the Corn" use sickles better.

--We see a ghost once, for no real apparent reason! We don't even find out who the hell it is!

The Ugly:

--The movie's greatest strength seems to come from the idea that Linda Blair is cast in it, as if that guarantees a super high quality movie. Linda Blair isn't why "Exorcist" was good, it was the story, direction, scares, originality, and acting. Linda Blair does not equate quality horror, people. Remember that.

--Poor, uncreative make-up. One of the mutant crazy killer-guys actually looks like the goddamn Wolf Man! I'm not kidding, the Lon Chaney Wolf Man!! Luckily, you only see him for about 2/3 of a second.

Memorable Scene:

--Linda Blair somehow drives a car relatively competently while holding her hands over her eyes and flailing her feet all over the floor while a guy is on top smashing through the windshield. No kidding.

Ha ha, believe it or not, the description on the back of the box (and remember, I have it on video) is wrong! POSSIBLE SPOILER: Says three college kids, actually four plus three antagonists trying to scare them. Says one half-man, half-monster is killing the kids, seemed like two So how good could this movie be if even the description is bad?

Acting: 4/10 Story: 4/10 Atmosphere: 7/10 Cinematography: 6/10 Character Development: 0/10 Special Effects/Make-up: 3/10 Nudity/Sexuality: 0/10 Violence/Gore: 5/10 Music: 5/10 Direction: 3/10

Cheesiness: 2/10 Crappiness: 7/10

Overall: 3/10

Another one for just horror buffs and completists, and even that might be a stretch. Maybe if you really, really really, beyond a shadow of a doubt, love nothing else but cheesy, thoughtless 80's horror, then you might like it But I think we're all better off without.

www.ResidentHazard.com


I watched FRAT FRIGHT (also known as HAPPY HELL NIGHT), NIGHT SCHOOL, SORORITY HOUSE MASSACRE and this film, HELL NIGHT, one after the other during the span of an entire week, and I have to say that all horror films in academic settings pretty much suck. HELL NIGHT is totally cheeeeeeeesy. If it weren't for the (very) few sex scenes and the little gore seen here and there, this would play exactly like a SCOOBY DOO episode. 4 college students stay in a mansion with a bloody history. Some other students roam around the mansion to scare the 4. As expected, the 3 other students are killed first by the creepy people inhabiting the mansion. Then the 4 college students are next. Who's going to survive? Well, that's easy to figure out.

The story doesn't make any sense whatsoever. If the students do this every year, why do the people living in the mansion suddenly decide to kill off the students now? No reason is given for why they decided to go on a murderous rampage.

Anyway, the whole thing was a total bore. The only thing that kept me awake and watching was trying to spot the *many* moments where the microphone was clearly visible at the top of the frame. Too funny.

The ending was the only good thing about HELL NIGHT. The last shot at the gate is very good. But it's too little and too late.


This has all the elements of a bad horror movie, but unlike some so-bad-it's-good low-budget fright flicks, this one takes itself seriously--and therin lies the problem. I always say the sign of a bad horror movie is when you want every character to die, just so the movie can end. That was definitely the case with "Hell Night." I was literally counting how many characters are still alive, so I'd know how soon it'll all be over. Even at approximately an hour and 40 minutes, I felt the film went on way too long. That goes on to prove that a good movie is never too long and a bad movie is never too short. The acting is decent, though nothing special. But I'd rather watch a fun horror flick with bad actors than a clunker like this with decent actors. This is the only movie, besides "The Exorcist," that I've seen of Linda Blair's. Apparently, she made a consecutive series of bombs after gaining fame from that debut role. Aside from one exciting scene where one of the characters tries to climb over a pointed gate, the movie is devoid of any real thrills. Most of the scenes are composed of characters walking through dark locations for about 5 minutes before something actually happens. The movie itself has almost no originality. The score is cheesy, and so are the horrendously dated 80's hairstyles and wardrobe. Even for low-budget horror standards, this is one awful flick!

My score: 2 (out of 10)


Four college kids (2 girls, 2 boys) must spend the night in a haunted house to get into the sororities and fraternities they pledged. What they don't know is the house IS haunted by a seemingly unstoppable killer. Who will survive? Sound familiar?

A very by the numbers horror film utterly devoid of chills or imagination. It was one of the crummy films that everybody was making back in the early 1980s in the wake of the inexplicable success of "Friday the 13th". This film DOES have Linda Blair in it...but she's pretty bad. The only good acting was from handsome, hunky Peter Barton who actually gave us a sympathetic character (despite the lousy dialogue). The worst acting was by idiotic Vincent Van Patten. Apparently he was no joy on the set either. He was supposed to do a nude love scene with his costar (not Blair) but refused at the last minute--he didn't want to tarnish his "image"! Like being in something called "Hell Night" was going to give you a good reputation!

The movie has no nudity, very little swearing and next to no violence, blood or gore---how did this get an R rating? Very dull--not even good enough for laughs. Avoid.


When I watch films from my own country, Norway, I would like to think that I watch them with an open mind. The reviews we get in out media are very often undeserved praise, the reason being that the media do not wish to offend the film industry, because we live in such a small country, and it would be suicide to give negative reviews to poor films.. And in some way or another, all Norwegian films are founded by the state. So, we like to support our film industry, even when we make poor films. But I don't care if I offend. I stem the tide, because I want to see better Norwegian films, "Reprise" is the only great Norwegians film I've seen as far as I can remember, and there is awfully lots of film that's supposed to be "Masterworks", witch is just not true. DeUsynlige is one of them.

In the last years, the Norwegian film industry has produced films with with better style and technique than before. This holds true with DeUsynlige. But the content, however, is just not there. The acting was okay, the problem is with the director Poppe and especially the screenwriter. They just don't know how to tell a story! For me, It doesn't work at all. The level of writing really was humiliating. I think Norwegian film industry should just keep going making horror films, young people learning how to make their money back, learning to appeal and tell stories where we quickly get sympathy the characters, the basic stuff, before start to experiment with story structure, like in DeUsynlige, where they fail, and here is why.

The problem is that act one is basically that we as an audience invest in the storyline of character Jan Thomas; being released from prison, getting a job at a church, meets his love interest, and then maybe 40 minutes in, the turning point involves Jan Thomas having to face the father of the kid he supposedly murdered. So I think, this is where the story will progress, act two, what now? The story falls flat, because there is nothing left to tell. Maybe because the momentum of the story really is in the past, before the story of the film. It's easy to sense bad writing when stories falls flat after the setup or the first act. What happens is you get bored, and instead you pick up all the flaws of the film, and this really happened to me. Why did I get bored? Goodbye, Jan Thomas, we switch protagonist to an insane Danish woman.

It's not like other multi or plural protagonist films, where they establish the characters we will get acquainted in the first act. In this film, the new characters are introduced 40 minutes in. And they use terrible flashbacks that really don't tell us anything to try to make the switch work. And this time around, with these characters, they don't care to show us why we should care for them. The only thing is that we know that they lost their child eight years ago. With Jan Thomas, in the beginning, we have scenes of imprisonment and acts of violence against him, where they actually try to makes us feel sorry for him.. Also, his love interest, is shown helping a addict, which invites us to kind of like her. Cheap stuff yeah, but we can see that they actually try. We're not in that spirit invited to care for the Danish mother and her husband, and we follow them, I don't know, for the next 50 minutes! There's a plot about them moving to Danmark which goes nowhere! I keep wondering why they introduced the plot of them moving to Denmark. But bravo for one funny scene where the husband makes an excuse, and lies that he lost his wineglass on the ceiling, when it clearly was an act of anger. Otherwise we just don't care what happens.

All the built up in the first act is thrown out the window. Too bad the screenwriter didn't have anything more to say about Jan Thomas's trials and tribulations, and don't know how to tell a full story. It's just two beginnings and one end. That's the biggest problem of the film, the Danish woman and her husband should have been a part of the film from the beginning on, they should be set-up properly and then gradually give us insight in their lives, to make the switch work. But no.

The end shows us the return of Jan Thomas. Yeah we move from A to A, great character progression indeed! I mean this seriously because the middle of the film, strangely enough, lacks his presence. It sets out to be an emotional experience, but turns out to be a agonizingly flawed, awkward and silly film, going nowhere but up it's own ass.

Furthermore, throughout the movie, the children character's are just props. They're stick figures. They have no POV, they're just objects that make the grownup characters feel guilty. That typical condescending thing. They're not children. They’re scary and soulless story props, making the story sort of evolve (one kid brainlessly causes the climax). It's not like how children are portrayed in the films of Moodysson or Kiarostami, the children characters in this film are so weak and unbelievable that we actually sit there and hope that they will die. This says more about the film, than me, okay? And we never learn why Jan Thomas kidnapped a child in the first place. For what reason? It's just "I'm gonna steal this thing here and make a run for it".

The idea of telling this story with both points of view is interesting, and they've could've done a much better job. Too bad the execution was awful. Too bad Erik Poppe is an acclaimed Norwegian director, and will get away with making more of these "masterpieces" in the years to come.


This is Norwegian film in a nutshell, stiff and unnatural dialouge, an introvert main character and a pretentious story filled with angst...This movie is about regret, guilt and the ability to forgive each other, to make it all too obvious most of the story involves a church.Long scenes without dialouge that are meant to be sacral and beautiful but turns out just irritating and predictable.

I just can't understand the mainstream critics who swallows this pompous and totally boring piece of ....!Just because the movie deals with serious issues involving God and forgiveness and so on it shouldn't be praised as the work of a genius.But i guess there will always be a bunch of pseudo intellectuals which enjoy these kind of movies with their red-wine.

If you want too see a good Norwegian movie, see FATSO, it's underrated and it didn't go well with the critics...maybe because it's filled up with good dialouge, exiting characters and spot on observations, but i guess that doesn't appeal to the elitists in the media.


Ever since I was a little boy, I was a big fan of the Three Stooges. I had seen every movie they ever made, except "Kook's Tour." When it was finally released on video in 1999, my jaw nearly hit the floor. Unfortunately, my hopes were too high for what I was about to see. Billed as "Their last and funniest film," the Stooges simply take a camping trip and that's about it. Larry Fine suffered a stroke and was unable to complete the filming, so Norman Maurer filled the remaining time with scenery and narration by Moe Howard. "Kook's Tour" is indeed an important piece of Stooge history, but it is not a worthwhile film.


This isn't really a Three Stooges film -- it's a travelogue that happens to feature the Stooges. As such, there isn't really much comedy in it. Nice scenery, but not much of anything funny. Moe's narration doesn't really add much -- it over-explained the jokes at times. And the long stretch focusing on Moose the dog really dragged. The almost stereotypical '60s "light comedy" soundtrack was grating at times.

But the sped-up parts were kind of funny at times. Many of the best lines were references to the Stooges now being retired. I've never cared much for Curly-Joe (not in comparison with the Howard brothers he replaced, anyway), but at least here he's no less funny than Moe and Larry get to be.

The old black & white footage at the beginning was kind of interesting. I assume this all must come from the Curly-Joe-era theatrical films (most of which I haven't seen); but whatever its origin, they managed to make it look convincingly (and appropriately) really OLD. If one didn't know better, one might think Curly-Joe had been with the Stooges for their entire long career! Which, by the way, was NOT the "50 years" they keep saying. I guess they wanted to use a nice, big, round number. "40" would have served that purpose AND it would have been accurate.


"The Deadly Look of Love" is essentially "Fatal Attraction" with a couple of twists added onto the back half. The ending will not surprise anyone who has seen more than two or three Movies of the Week. It is yet another cautionary tale about succumbing to temptation, and it adds nothing fresh to the genre.

Brett (Vincent Spano) is engaged to a beautiful woman who just happens to have a sizable trust fund. Even though he has it all, he risks losing everything by starting up a steamy side affair with Janet (Jordan Ladd). Janet, a doe-eyed blonde from Cedar Falls, falls hard for Brett, and she does not take it particularly well when he comes clean about his engagement. Shortly after the wedding, Mrs. Brett turns up dead in the master bedroom of the large, luxurious home she shared with her new husband. When the police question Brett, he promptly points the finger at Janet. Following her arrest, Janet seems to get loonier by the minute - not that she was the picture of stability before. Her defense attorney (Holland Taylor) is convinced that Janet is innocent and is hell bent on proving it.

Did she do it or didn't she? How will it end? You can find out the answers to these questions the next time "The Deadly Look of Love" airs on your local station. And be sure not to miss the moral of this beautiful story: men are pigs, and women are crazy.


I happened upon this flick on a rainy Sunday, intending to tune-in to something else. Out of curiosity, I accessed the comments here, and found myself watching it to the end. I really didn't do so with intent -- this was one of those movies where you're "fascinated," and watch it for "another couple of minutes," until you finally just watch to the end. And the indictment of it in most of these comments made it more fascinating to view. The one comment where the person really liked it seems to be solely as a result of liking Ladd and Spano, and their earlier roles. But great isn't anywhere to be found anywhere here - story, performances, and particularly the absurd courtroom hi-jinks. We all know that Perry Mason (before Raymond Burr passed the 300-lb. mark), and Ben Matlock, are granted some leeway in cavorting around the courtroom, instead of being boringly confined to a lectern. And Matlock is especially granted the privilege of entering exhibits often by simply going to the jury and showing them, before the judge and prosecutor have even been informed of, or shown, them. No real-life judge or prosecutor would stand for this.

Both Perry and Ben almost always ended the proceedings by wringing a confession of the real killer. Actually Perry nearly always did this, but often Matlock would simply present overwhelming evidence of the true culprit, pronounce it "reasonable doubt," and then leave it to the cops and prosecutors to proceed against the guilty party - sometimes on-camera, sometimes presumed at the end of the show.

But that said, Holland Taylor's histrionics and the amount of leeway afforded her, in the courtroom portion of this story, made the actions of Matlock/Mason more-closely resemble the slow, often boring detail such as seen on Court TV and in real-life courtrooms.

Every character in this presentation was either insipid, unsympathetic, obnoxious, boring, improbable - or some combination of two or more of these.

The ending was the most banal, absurd, even silly conclusion possible - but again, fascinating because of this. Ladd and Spano are attractive individuals, and t.v. movies would appear their best forte - probably best in 2nd-lead (probably better if "3rd-") roles, even in this venue. Taylor could be cast as the aunt or mother of one of them. Give this one 1 star for the story/performances, and 3 additional for the fascination factor.


i can't believe i actually watched this but i guess i just wanted to know if this movie would get unintentionally funnier and funnier towards the end. and it did. the climax was the poorest performance ever given by the defence lawyer - so out of real life that even for a fictional story it was far too weird. no way anyone on this planet can behave in front of a court like she did. and probably the worst prosecutor on earth. why was he in court anyway? he did nothing and absolutely nothing to prove her guilty. a simple search of her house would have resulted in the find of the rings. but no go. he preferred to say "objection" 2 or 3 times during the whole trial - that was it. the blonde lunatic was given a truth-drug to prove her innocent but not Brett. the lunatic almost had an altar of Brett in her home that could have proved her sick obsession. but again no go. during the court scene i felt the silent urge to take the needlepoint out of her hand and bang it several times against her head. even real weirdos do not look that silly fake "i am innocent" like she did. and what does this movie tell us? never marry a woman with a life insurance: as soon as she falls down the stairs her husband will be thrown into jail, guilty or not. evil, evil men.


.... may seem far fetched.... but there really was a real life story.. of a man who had an affair with a woman, who found out where he and his new wife were staying,, and she killed the wife,, making it look like a murder rape.......

in her delusion she had told everyone that the man had asked her to marry him.. so she quit her job in Wisconsin... and moved to Minnesota..........

last I heard she was in a mental institution, Security Prison....

she was still wearing the "engagement ring." that she has purchased for herself... and had told everyone that he had bought it for her.

The events took place in a small town in Wisconsin,,,,,,, and the murder happened in Minnesota......

There even was a feature story in "People" magazine... Spring of 1988, I want to say on Page 39. I remember this as I was in college at the time,, and a colleague of mine had met the individual in the Security Hospital....


I couldn't believe this terrible movie was actually made at all. With the worst actors you could find, the worst script written (Mark Frost & Sollace Mitchell) and by far the worst waste of time in viewing. I won't belabor the story as it's really not worth it. But I will elaborate on some of the performances and definitely the story. As to the story, it is very hard to believe that this bitty crazy schemer could actually do what she did. That in reality the wife couldn't defend herself against a little bitty of a thing. That the husband could actually find the nut case attractive at all. That the defense attorney could break every court rule there was and keep on doing it after the judge ordered the blankety blank to shut up. And the final result of the film is an insult to justice, movie codes, and the male species. The theme of this mess is let women do as they wish, kill whom they want, defend the killer and get away with it, while the guy rots in jail the innocent victim. Hard to believe that Sollace Mitchell, the director and a man, would even want to make this dribble.

As to the acting: Jordan Ladd, the killer, is awful. A loony toons, who does needlepoint during her murder trial (is this allowed in court?) She bored me to the hilt. One more look of her batting her eyes and indicating how innocent she was and I'd throw up. She's not even attractive enough for any guy to leave his wife. The husband, played on one level by Vincent Spano, just seems to look and act stupid most of the time. He was so predictable in his performance falling into the traps set for him by all the women surrounding him. The worst by far was Holland Taylor as the Defense Attourney. She over acted throughout the film and made a mockery of justice. If she would cross examine me anytime, I'd have told her to go take a hike. Everybody else in this sleazy film did their job as directed to do so.

I wish I could give this film a zero rating. However we are forced to start with 1. Too bad. Let's not have anymore painful watching films like this. Lifetime can do better then this, I know it.

This is a postscript: Made the mistake of turning this insipid movie on by mistake. As soon as I saw the bimbo Jordan Ladd I knew I'd seen it before and didn't like it or her. I not only turned the darn thing off but had to add my anger at people like Sollace Mitchell who wrote the screenplay but also directed this horrible flick. Doesen't anyone see that her/his message is that sickness pays. Being ill and going around killing people is okay with this director/writer. Totally making the male species idiots. Well, this male tells you to go stuff it somewhere painful. We're not all that stupid and will speak out to your so called movie, which in this person's mind deserves to be trashed.

And again this loser is shown. Why???? Can't you read the comments on this stupid and despicable movie? Are we constantly subjected to see the bimbo Jordan Ladd again and again? Get her off TV, films and out of sight. She's just terrible in every sense of the word. Phew!!!!


Jesus Christ, I can't believe I've wasted my time watching this movie. I only watched because I have such a crush on Jordan Ladd. But watching this film almost put me off her. This is absolutely awful! I could have been watching Survivor Series 93 over this.

The lead guy in this was so bland and generic. I would love it if the great Mistuharu Misawa Tiger Drove '91'd his ass through a glass window. I was enraging every time he was saying "lake" and "cabin". I'd kick his ass.

Jordan Ladd, on the other hand, was absolutely wonderful. A true angel. But she couldn't even save this utter joke of a film. Sadly, she couldn't even act like she was off her nut when she took that truth drug. It looked hilarious.

I also loved the bit where Jordan accidentally spilled yogurt on her. It reminded me of a time where...nevermind.

Anayways, do watch this film because of it's awfulness.


The main problem with Barton Fink is that nothing really happened. It never manages to lift itself above the averageness present from the start. Writer's block is not a very interesting subject, as it's just a man sitting around thinking about what to write. I am actually suffering from writer's block right now, trying to think of something to say about this film. I'm not really sure what it was trying to show and why it is thought of as a good film. The whole thing was a bit stupid and sometimes it felt like watching paint dry. I am not a massive Coen fan so this film did not appeal to me as it did to many other people. Having said that, I don't really see the appeal as it was a very bland storyline. John Turturro never seems to change and I have never been impressed by any of his performances. I didn't actually realise this film was a comedy until afterwards so it obviously wasn't very funny. The idea of showing Hollywood's 'darker side' is a concept it tried to use but didn't manage it very well. Mulholland Drive (2001) uses this concept much more effectively. Speaking of Mulholland Drive, I noticed Mr Fink flaunts a hairstyle that is most definitely copied from somewherea famous David Lynch film; I won't spell it out to you. Anyone that loves The Coen Brothers will probably like this film, but it might seem a bit boring to anybody else. So there you go, it looks like I have managed to squeeze out a paragraph, which is more than Barton Fink managed to do.


I guess I will be the only one to put disparagement on this beloved work which anybody on the site praises to the skies.Frankly I do not like it ,not at all.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS:the screenplay is not that much strong,and the suspense is not really here.The first hour is boring and what remains is a spate of clichés:best/worst example:the killer,leaving "clues" on the dead body ,I've seen it (and read it) so many times that it leaves me amazed :how can a writer ,fifty years or so after Agatha Christie and co,still think of a such hackneyed idea?Giving the killer's identity or the key to the mystery half an hour or more before the ending can be rewarding (such was the case in "vertigo" (1958)),but here ,it destroys any fear:who could reasonably think that the hero -and his girl-could be really in jeopardy after that?Only a whodunit could sustain the interest till the very end.

But there's something more annoying:one of the characters is unbearable,the notorious Jens:the scene in the restaurant with the prostitute makes me sick:this bourgeois student really demeans this girl thanks to the power of his dough.Seeing him humiliate this human being while taking out his banknotes is one of the most despicable scenes I've seen in years ;and that does not make the "hero"-who's watching- nicer either.Besides guess who will be sacrificed when the others will survive?Another gratuitous scene which comes at the most awkward moment involves Jens and his priest girlfriend in the church .It's really nauseating.That makes the very last scene even more disgusting.And you know ,I 'm far from being holier-than-thou.

I know a lot of people will disagree... but once more,there's no accounting for taste.


I was quite a young child but remember this movie. I recall the handicapped man visiting museums and studying chain mail while designing his special armor. He would climb into a tanning booth-like device that would encase him in the suit. Once in it, he was able to walk and, of course, fight crime. Ah, the 70's! ;)

For years I had assumed it was a short-lived series...I had no idea there was only one movie ever made! Apparently there was a lot of studio wrangling that prevented this pilot concept from taking off. Too bad. It's interesting that this idea has since been used in other film productions.

Search YouTube for "Exoman" and you'll find a five-minute clip. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0KSqelmgN8


Another good idea ruined by the TV people. "Exo-Man" is the story of a college professor who is crippled by a spinal injury during a break-in (the bad guy whacks him across the back with a length of pipe). He uses his talents to build an exoskeleton (actually a suit) to enable himself to walk - and to avenge himself on the bad guys.

The movie started out OK, but the special effects were poor for 1977 and the script was horrible.

If this sounds familiar, the idea was handled a bit better in the short-lived series M.A.N.T.I.S.


I saw this movie when I was a little kid. It's about a crippled man that builds a suit that allowed him to walk and he ended up trying to be a crime fighter. He almost looks like a walking red bullet or missile. He had one weakness, a lack of air in the power suit. For some reason I really thought this movie was cool. By the way, the suit was bullet proof. I would love to see this movie on Mystery Science Theater 3000.

BGR


It's hard to remember now what an impoverished time the 1970s were for science fiction and superhero television shows. While the SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN, BIONIC WOMAN, INCREDIBLE HULK, and WONDER WOMAN seem to have done well in our memories, their budgets were limited and the creativity was hampered by the SFX technology of the time.

But that did not stop studios from trying. And occasionally a network would begrudgingly cough up the money for a pilot in the form of a made-for-TV flick.

In this case, the guys behind the two bionic shows on ABC got NBC interested in their pitch for another Martin Caidin concept. Caidin was the leading "tech thriller" writer of the 60s and 70s. His NASA novel MAROONED (actually three novels) was a famous film. His gritty novel CYBORG was softened into the popular SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN. NBC probably asked for "something like the $6M Man but different." They got it.

Caidin again looked to cutting edge technology for his gimmick. NASA and the Pentagon had been working on "man-amplifiers", powered frameworks a user could wear and use to possess forklift-like strength. The chemical industry had developed "memory plastic", materials that could be deformed then spring back into shape when an electric current was supplied. So there was the concept-- a man-amplifier suit that used memory plastic joints to make it work.

Of course this is television so they needed a crisis to compel the hero to build the thing in the first place. In this case, the hero was a college professor who witnessed a crime. The local mobsters tried shutting him up by nearly killing him. Now paraplegic, the hero decided to combine his work with memory plastic with research by his colleagues to produce an armored plastic suit that can walk on its own. And of course, this being TV, he used the suit to get revenge on the mobsters. He even picked up the obligatory street-smart young assistant along the way. The idea looked good on paper. The only problem was, the best mid-70s SFX tech could come up with was plastic plate mail the wearer could barely move in.

NBC took a look at the pilot, let it air once, and quietly forgot about it. As did most of the viewers.

Martin Caidin just cashed his check and went on with his life. After all, he still had the royalties from the bionic shows coming in. A few years later, Caidin decided to recycle the basic ideas behind EXOMAN in his early-80s tech thriller MANFAC. Like CYBORG, this is a very serious, very adult novel that still holds up well. MANFAC also enabled Caidin to have his final say on some of the exaggerated powers of THE $6M MAN, especially that "running at 60 mph" trick (the suit's legs literally run out from under the wearer).


As a 2 tour Iraq vet, I was taken to this movie as a birthday outing and didn't realize the "plot" was supposed to be an Iraqi war commentary.

It's difficult to know where to start unwinding this tangled yarn of agenda, malfeasance, and outright lies, but the theater didn't keep our money that evening. We WALKED OUT after about 1/2 hour of watching this drivel, and demanded our money back. (Which they most-assuredly were willing to return to us) If you think lying to the American people is bad, this movie was obviously made for FOREIGN CONSUMPTION, so that the miserable wretches who conspired to make and distribute this pile of of crap, could make money SELLING OUT America AND KILLING American BOYS.

And if you don't think this kind of garbage winds up killing Americans, you really ought to read some history and (gasp) maybe even serve your country in patriotism.


I was looking forward to seeing this movie after seeing Jim Kelly in 'Black Belt Jones' and 'Enter the Dragon' but I was disappointed with the fact that Jim Kelly's voice was dubbed over by someone else. Nonetheless, 'Tattoo Connection' remained entertaining. The fight scenes towards the end were long and tedious at times yet at other times were trying new things by adding weapons and such. Kelly's acting was as bad as ever and shows little facial expression while the plot itself is just awful. This is the kind of movie you can't stop laughing at because it's so bad.


A friend of mine picked up this "gem" from one of those $2 DVD bins at the local supermarket. I was somewhat interested in seeing it, after all I did enjoy "Enter the Dragon" and wanted to see some more of Jim Kelly and Bolo Yeung. This flick falls short of the mark, but I can't quite put my finger on why. The dubbing is bad, the camera work is poor, and the script is extremely predictable (all of these things I expect from a cheesy kung fu movie), but there seems to be something missing from this piece of celluloid. It may be that between the ass beatings, utterly pointless nudity, and wah-a-chicka music there's not much substance.

The plot is that there's a diamond heist in Hong Kong by a gang (they all have the same tattoo, hence the title). Lucas (Jim Kelly) is called in by the insurance company to track down the diamond. Lucas seems to keep finding that his leads are killed off before he can get all the information that he needs. The other aspect of the story revolves around one of the gang members and his internal struggle with his loyalty to his boss and escaping the gangster life with his girlfriend.

Still the whole thing seemed to be thrown together kind of haphazardly. There are some good lines, decent kung fu action, and naked girls, but it still seems to lack something. The times between the action are really boring.


I'm a little disappointed with this film. The DVD cover led me to believe that this was BAAAAADDDDAAAASSSSSSS cinema, so I bought it on this pretence. It has Pam Grier in it so it has to be BBBBAAAAADDDDAASSSSS, right? WRONG. This film is just BBBBBAAAAADDDDD! Trying hard to be a 'roughie' and exploitation / escape film at the same time, Women in Cages is a hotch potch job, it's all over the place. I had trouble deciding which character I despised more. Sure, there's nudity and violence etc, but not much else to stay awake for!!! Exploitation, fair enough but this isn't even 'good' exploitation, if that makes sense. I likes mah explore-tation a tad mo sleaziuh and mo well done than this.......


Kids at the age there after (1-3) are constantly learning, and a brainless TV show like this, ware the characters constantly talk rubbish and the narrator keeps naming nonexistent things and creatures. Cannot be any good for the poor kids (even if them may like it).

This show is absolutely terrible! I review 1/10.-(no better than Teletubbies!)

I believe that shows like this may not just be a waste of the kids time but may have a negative for longer term learning.

As research shows TV can be vary bad for young kids, so why waste the little time that a kid can have, with such a pointless show. Especially when there are much better shows, like Playschool, Curious George, Shaun the Sheep


Sweet Helen Hunt is better for bland Andrew McCarthy than sexy-but-bitchy and thoughtless Kelly Preston, but it takes him the entire movie to figure that out. This painfully predictable comedy tries to delay the inevitable by coming up with a series of forced scenes and situations, and it's also visually dreary, despite the potentially majestic locations. I think Hunt is the best thing in the picture. (*1/2)


The problem with 'Only You' isn't so much that this low-budget fare is structured upon ever romantic comedy cliché you can think of. Andrew McCarthy plays the misguided fool who is torn between the insincere bimbo (Kelly Preston) that he spends the Christmas holiday at a tropical resort after being dumped and in a drunken haze, travels there with his new companion. The clerk at the travel agency (Helen Hunt) who wouldn't give him a refund for his trip earlier in the evening coincidentally shows up there too, on a freelance photography gig (seriously, these people must be traveling on supersonic rockets to get from Chicago to the beachside resort so quickly). And of course, the gold-digging bimbo treats him like crap and he slowly starts to realize that perhaps, the real girl for him, is the genuine travel agent/photographer he spends a lot of time with on his vacation when the bimbo is constantly hanging out somewhere with more manly men who swoon her. And yada, yada, yada... the foolish protagonist must make up his mind about what kind of lady he wants, and well... it's not only typical to romantic comedy plots, it's typical Andrew Mccarthy.

Granted the movie does offer at least a few laughs, but the movie would've been much more believable had all of this not happened in the course of about ten days. True, McCarthy's character was impulsive, but it didn't seem to square that Helen Hunt's character was, too. But of course, this is a movie. And not even a really good one, either.