Too bad there's a length limit on comments, because I could write volumes about how incredibly awful this movie is. To those who saw this as some sort of commercial for PETA, I'd suggest you go back and watch it again (but I wouldn't suggest anyone watch this garbage even once, let alone twice). Did you not notice that the two characters who cared anything about animals were severely damaged goods? Far from being a pro-PETA piece, this movie strongly implies that the only reason anyone cares deeply about animals is because they are incapable - for one reason or another - of functioning in human society. To those who thought this movie was "warm" or "funny" - if your idea of warm or funny is to watch a slightly introverted but otherwise competent woman sink inexorably into a downward spiral of psychotic madness replete with larceny, child abuse, animal abuse, vandalism, betrayal, and attempted murder - then this movie may be just your cup of tea. And to those who identified with the main character - I implore you to get professional help as soon as possible.

I've read many of the other comments and want to correct a few points that I believe are misperceptions: 1. Peggy was not a sociopath at the beginning of the movie - she was a fairly introverted but otherwise normal person. The fact that she could deal competently with an obviously paranoid boss, maintain a normal, healthy friendship with a coworker, remain friends with a thoroughly unlikeable brother and sister-in-law and engender the affection of her spoiled niece all indicated that her initial problems ran no deeper than being a rather homely wallflower who had compensated for her lack of an intimate human relationship by being closely - but not pathologically - attached to her dog.

2. Newt was not gay. If you paid attention to what he said, you discovered that he was abused terribly in childhood - and the most probable reason that he was unable to have an intimate relationship with either a woman or a man was a not-too-subtle suggestion that this abuse produced a physiological rather than psychological incapacity (mutilation? castration?).

3. Peggy is not headed toward some sort of happy ending at the end of the movie, but rather has retreated fully into psychosis. The crimes to which her delusions have led her are not crimes she will be able to walk away from - and her fully psychotic state will only lead her to commit more in her deranged desire to protect animals.

4. Many commenters claimed that the people around Peggy didn't care about her loss of Pencil. On the contrary, each character she came into contact with expressed their sympathy and at least tried in some way to comfort her. That some of their methods were crass or counter-productive does not diminish their underlying empathy.

The movie's primary detestable assumptions are that a) anyone who has a close bond to animals only comes to that bond because they are incapable - for one reason or another - of forming healthy bonds with other people, and b) that people so bonded to animals are hopelessly blind to reason. About midway through, the movie abandoned any pretext of being an exploration of feelings and emotions and became nothing more than a sick, twisted attack on animal lovers. One of the principle evidences of this transformation was when, discovering that the German Shepherd had killed the disabled dog, Peggy rushes to the pound to try to save the German Shepherd. PETA or not, no animal lover in possession of their senses would contend that a dog that attacks and kills another pet (let alone a person) should not immediately be put down. And no animal pound in existence would entrust another fifteen dogs to the care of such a person, no matter what credentials they claimed.

I suggest that the writer of this awful, awful piece of work has some deep issues with animals - and is completely incapable of understanding that love and empathy are not the sole province of human-to-human relationships, but rightfully - and healthily - should extend to a genuine care for all creatures - great and small.

I could list many, many other ways in which this movie's portrayal of people who care about animals was screamingly unrealistic. And yes, I "get" dark comedy...but there was nothing comic about this. It was nothing more than a myopic, mean-spirited portrayal of dementia - and I'm afraid I can find nothing either entertaining or funny in that.


A movie that has three dogs dying in the first hour cannot be called a comedy. Whoever believes that's funny needs to get out of the advertising business or capitalism really is doomed. If I had thought this was a drama, I might have been prepared. Instead, I'm writing this review. "Terms of Endearment" was called a comedy, too. It's a shame that potentially good movies have to be billed as "comedies," setting audiences up to expect a good laugh. The only thing funny in this film were the overly-fake boobs of the blonde at Victoria's Secret. I don't believe in wearing fur, I do believe in rescuing animals, and in fact have been in every situation that was described in this film, so it's not like I don't have any experience with the subject matter. I have a rescue dog that bites me and I have no intention of having it euthanized. Billing euthanasia as comedy relief is either an attempt to exploit the animals the film portrays or it's a product of a sick, twisted culture that has reached the bottom of the barrel for something funny. I'm ready to say bring back the Keystone Cops if this is the best Hollywood can do for funny -- cause this ain't. Make any kind of film you want -- just don't label it as funny when it isn't.


I watched this movie today and decided to look it up on IMDb after to see what rating it was given. I was curious, because it was easily one of the worst movies I have ever seen.

I was surprised that other people have given it such a good rating. I didn't think it was funny or clever.. the only interesting thing about it was how bad it really was. Molly Shannon's character is probably more hateable than the antagonist in the movie (her neighbor). She is annoying, irrational, unreasonable, radical... and worse, neglectful to the animals that she pretends to love so much.

Shannon is supposed to come across as someone who would jump in front of a train for any animal, but instead, she is extremely selfish in everything she does. She does not think about the welfare of animals, instead she makes decisions that would allow her to feel better about herself. She is the one who is responsible for her first dog's death as she allowed him to escape, and then she has the nerve to put the blame on her neighbor. She forges cheques from her boss's bank account to animal rights groups. When she adopts the 15 dogs, she does not consider whether or not they would be comfortable and safe in such a confined living area. She breaks into her neighbors house and tries to stab him because she thinks that he reported her for keeping too many dogs in her house (which, by the way, he would have had every right to do). The list goes on and on.

I am an animal lover and I did not like this movie at all. If you're desperate for an animal movie, I'm sure Marley and Me would be a better bet.


I found a DVD of this movie on the shelf at the library. I should have left it there. About fifteen minutes into the film I was somewhat intrigued. By the time I'd reached thirty minutes, I was gasping for air, but had to watch the rest to see if it would ever recover. It didn't. I still have a problem deciding if it was meant to be a black comedy or not. Surely, this story of quirky characters and the situation in which they find themselves was not meant to be taken seriously. I love animals as much as the next guy, but to see people who take their love of animals to such extremes just made for a bad movie. The best actor was Pencil the dog, who had the good sense to die early on.


Persuaded by the positive comments here, I watched this one, thinking that it would be pleasantly escapist. Wrong! Does the film attempt to alert us to the plight of abandoned animals? If so, why does it select a radically unbalanced spokesperson to represent this view? She undercuts her message. Or, is the story the unbalanced woman herself? It can't be both. Anyone who has had dogs knows that you don't disturb them when they are eating dinner. Yet the dog-experienced character does precisely that and gets the expected result. So, even on smaller points, the movie undermines itself. Furthermore, is it only California that permits toxic materials to be used for rodent control? We can't do that where I live precisely because that stuff kills other animals too. So the film seemed ignorant on that point too, though I would accept correction on that point. An incoherent waste of time.


This is bar-none, one of the worst films I have ever seen. The only reason I've given it 2 stars is because the actors in this film are very effective in their character portrayal. All the absolutely unlikable characters will remind viewers of someone they know. The neurotic parents, bratty kids, oblivious ditsy best friend, womanizer, smug arrogant boss and gay man conflicted about his homosexuality are all represented. As a fan of Molly Shannon and quirky off-beat movies, I was enthusiastic about seeing this film. As my husband and I watched this movie we kept waiting for something to happen. Nothing ever did. The movie just rambled pointlessly as the main character seemed to undergo a mental breakdown. By the end of the movie, most viewers will be convinced that Molly Shannon's character is a real fruitcake. Molly Shannon effectively conveys the image of a lonely spinster lacking in people skills who insulates herself from the hurts of the human experience by replacing them with animals. Despite her fine acting ability, she does not salvage this disaster of a movie. The final scene unconvincingly tries to convince us that the main character returns from the brink of a murderous mental breakdown and has an epiphany of self-discovering. It was pathetic.

(Also a minor factor in my dislike of this movie is the representation of animal lovers and activists as unstable and potentially dangerous.)

Synopsis- a complete waste 2 hours. Read a book instead.


I had heard a lot of good things about this movie and went with the intention of liking it - but it just didn't work for me. After reading the other reviews, I don't agree that this is a movie that PETA would love since it portrays an animal rights activist as an embezzling, slightly deranged loner who mistreats the dogs in her care and has no life, no friends, etc. Peggy didn't appeal to the dog lover in me either - she was the one who left her dog out all night, neglected to repair the hole in her fence, mistreated all the dogs she supposedly 'rescued'. I thought the other characters were more finely drawn and better portrayed as well, especially Laura Dern's Brett and Peter Saarsgard's Newt. Molly Shannon's acting ability seemed to be confined to keeping a fairly gruesome expression on her face - not much fun to look at for 90+ minutes - and it never changed whether she was sad, worried, concerned, happy.


Picking on our government and certain corporations with regards to debt and credit policy is like shooting fish in a barrel. So, the movie stuck to the easy stuff (credit card companies are bad and the government is ignoring the problem - both may be true) and the emotional stuff (people with sever psych problems or depression brought on by their spending habits who take their own lives) and skipped over what would have been a really good investigation.

I'd like to know how people get into debt and what the process is. This movie completely ignored the "consumer" on focused on everyone else involved - and the blame was on the companies and the government. I'm not saying that those two aren't to blame at all, but there is a person who is spending and they should be held accountable.

Finally, I would have liked to see more about the "typical American" with almost $10k of credit card debt. Find those "normal" people (not the extremes, which is what we were shown) and talk about their problems and why they get into debt in the first place.

This movie missed so many opportunities and told so many half stories, that I was frustrated at at the end.


I went in to "Maxed Out" ignorantly expecting an interesting documentary on the foibles of credit and instead was duped into watching another left-leaning screed against just about all the wrong people. It doesn't take an idiot to realize the major problem with debt and credit cards in America falls mostly on the people themselves who run it up. The people who decide they need a Hummer to drive the mile and a half to the grocery store for milk instead of a more economical car. The people who decide a 52" Plasma screen just isn't big enough...or maybe that just one 52" Plasma isn't enough.

Sure there are examples of people who are down on their luck, fall on hard, unexpected times or are scammed by lenders into deals they can't afford. I'm not saying those people aren't out there. However, "Maxed Out" focuses solely on them and ignores the majority of people who lived it up only to find they couldn't really afford to do so.

This film plays on the heart strings (admittedly well) and turns to solely blaming the credit companies and big government for ALL of the credit trouble in this country. Never once does it show an example of someone who hadn't seen the light until they hit rock bottom thanks to their own ignorance, stupidity or greed. It does highlight two college students that ultimately committed suicide because they applied for and received credit cards upon starting college, unknown to their parents. They were irresponsible, ran up a debt they couldn't escape and ultimately turned to suicide. This is incredibly sad and I feel for the family, but you cannot solely blame the credit card companies for this. Hey, I got a credit card when I started college and I was smart enough to realize that you still have to pay for all that stuff. I never bought more than I could afford to pay off when the bill came. That's how it works. "Maxed Out" NEVER mentions this simple fact. Instead, it opts to blame the credit companies at every turn.

I said that it also loves to blame government for being in bed with the credit companies. This is somewhat true, but it unfairly paints the Republicans as the sole guilty party. I actually didn't get to watch this film until 2009, about 2-1/2 years after its release and now the current economic troubles only serve to marginalize this film and its Republican bashing tone.

It wants so desperately to blame Republicans for the credit problems of ordinary Americans but time has proved that it wasn't until after the Democrats took over (soon after this film's theatrical release) that the economy and credit problems reached Armageddon status. It even has the bad luck to briefly show such upstanding "leaders" as Christopher Dodd and Eliot Spitzer in a positive light. Sure, Spitzer's problems were personal, but Dodd has proved to be one of the greatest hypocrites and thieves in government today, accepting sweetheart mortgage deals on his several "mansions" in exchange for government payoffs back to the lender (Countrywide.) Dodd is hardly the example to hold up as someone fighting to fix the credit industry in America, but "Maxed Out" tries, while attempting to demonize President Bush at every turn.

It also unfairly portrays the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005 as a move that would mostly punish those already down on their luck for no reason of their own as well as solely a back-room deal between the Bush administration and major lender (and Bush campaign donor) MNBA. I'm not saying all that is entirely untrue, but the fact is the primary design of the bill was to stop the trend of people using bankruptcy as the easy way out even when there were other ways to escape their problems. By 2005, too many people who were living beyond their means had already learned to cheat the system and use bankruptcy law as a way to avoid paying off their debts. Stories abounded about how bankruptcy had stopped becoming a stigma and started becoming a status symbol among the jet-set and those desperately trying to "keep up with the Joneses." The 2005 bill specifically targeted those peoplethe very same people "Maxed Out" entirely ignores. The same people it neglects to mention once in any single segment of the film.

I also mentioned that the film is sluggish and haphazard. Aside from the left-leaning message of the film, it's not a fast moving, nor engrossing documentary. At only about 1:20 minutes (before the credits start rolling) it felt like 2+ hours. Not really helping is the fact that it jumps from message to message and story to story and sometimes seems to highlight a subject only to abandon it before the point is made.

There is a brief segment featuring two college students who attempted to use a sponsorship by a credit company to pay for college. Apparently it worked for a while, but they differed on the terms of the sponsorship and eventually the arrangement dissolved. The students claim they wanted to educate students on smart borrowing while the credit companies had other ideas. It's hard to say because the segment is so short and unfocused that I wasn't really sure what the deal was, how long it lasted and why specifically it ended. Additionally, not one representative of the credit company was interviewed for their take on the story.

That's also a major flaw of the film. It's entirely too one-sided. You might expect a credit company would at least get one chance to blame irresponsible borrowers and outright cheats. But it never happens. Ultimately, what could have been an interesting take on the universal blame for the credit fiasco in America, turns out as a one-sided, finger pointing, no solution bore.


Going into this movie I felt that a documentary on America's debt crisis had a subject that most could relate to and had the makings of one of the great documentaries of our time. Unfortunately it fell well short of my expectations. One of the people interviewed presented what I would consider to be nothing more than conspiracy theories about the credit reporting industry and it was presented as fact. Also, the film got too wrapped up in the emotions of people whose lives were affected by personal debt and debt of loved ones, rather than tackling the inner-workings of the consumer lending industry, which I would have found much more stimulating. While I don't think that late fees should make up half (or more) of a consumer's credit card bill, I find it difficult empathizing with people that purchase something, then elect not to pay the bill. On a positive note, the film did bring to light the ties of large banks to some other businesses. While I have seen worse documentaries, the film did not do the subject matter justice. Perhaps they should have had someone on staff with more analytical skills and some insight as to the inner workings of the consumer lending industry.


This film is an interesting portrait into the business of lending. You see the many sides of it. You see the many tragic stories of people who spent themselves into insurmountable debt. You see the profitability of debt collection. You see the aggressive expansion of the credit market into areas where creditors wouldn't have pursued before, since they used to not be profitable, like college students, and people with generally low income.

What you don't see is why these previously risky and unprofitable sectors of the market have suddenly become profitable. You get the impression that suddenly these previously high risk areas have become profitable because the creditors have expanded into these markets and forced them to be profitable, with new strategies.

But this is naive. Profitability has dramatically increased and new markets have become open to creditors because interest rates have been steadily dropping, to now rock bottom lows. A central factor is debt is the interest rates, and its hard to really praise a movie about the debt industry that doesn't even mention changes in interest rates or how the interest rates are are tampered with by the Federal Reserve. Consumer lending is extremely profitable, as the movie says, but it hasn't always been so profitable, and if you fail to make an argument about what has been the important change, you're left with an incomplete and misguided movie. The assumption is that people have somehow become addicted to spending and that the credit card companies are exploiting this addiction. And yet for some mysterious reason used to not spend as much as they do now.

The reality is that the credit card companies previously didn't expand into these untapped markets precisely because they were way to risky and would result in more losses from credit that is never repaid than profits from late fees interest. But once the Federal Reserve drops the interest rates down to unprecedentedly low levels, the risk changes and even those people who may not be ultimately able to pay beck their debt, can become profitable. But God forbid anyone should want to blame the Federal Reserve and Alan Greenspan for all of the irresponsible spending.

You see, when you lower the interest rate it doesn't just effect spending but it also effects saving. Lower interest rates mean lower returns on savings accounts, as well as lower losses on debt. It becomes more desirable to spend what money you have now (why save money you're going to earn almost no interest on?), and then continuing spending what money you don't even have yet. It's always preferable to have things now than have things in the future. So if a store offers you a plan where you buy a TV interest free for six months, then you can just say, "So what if I have don't have the money now, I'll have it in six months. If I buy the TV now, then I can enjoy the benefits of having the new TV and put off the costs of paying for it. That's a double bonus." The conclusions of the movie seem to be that we need is to regulate the credit industry to help all of these people who can't take care of themselves. Maybe we'll install credit cards with some sort of child-proof lock, which will somehow becomes active when you're about to make an imprudent purchase. More likely, though they would just raise the minimum age for getting a credit or regulating the credit limits available to low income people, or something like that. Both ideas sound equally bad. A better idea might be to prevent the Federal Reserve from tampering with interest rates so that we don't continue to encourage an ultimately unsustainable spend-now-pay-later economy in the mistaken belief that somehow the economy is driven by consumer spending.

In short, this movie will show you a lot about the credit industry that you didn't know. If it serves any benefit, it will hopefully scare you out of spending yourself into insurmountable debt. Nonetheless, without any insight into what actually contributes to consumer debt (which includes economic factors, like interest rates) then the movie degrades into an anti-big-business polemic of misplaced blame.


Mr. Chris' comments are dead-on so I will not repeat them here. I went into this movie with high hopes. Unfortunately, it failed to deliver. The movie is long on emotional appeals and short on facts. In addition, most of the material defies not only economic theory but also basic logic. For example, the movie claims that credit scores are meaningless but then goes on to "expose" a plan by the credit scorers to gather data from law enforcement agencies to feed into the credit scores. If the scores are meaningless and erroneous, why go to the expense of gathering additional data. In support of its crusade against credit reports, the movie states that 95% of credit reports contain errors. However, this is only important if those errors render the credit reports statistically uncorrelated with rates of credit default, which is clearly not the case. In fact, credit scores are excellent predictors of default rates. My own experience in reviewing my credit report and those of my clients has been that the "error" usually involve misspelling of a name or former street address. Hardly something that would have a detrimental effect on one's ability to borrow. In sum, there are some great fact-based documentaries out there (Michael Moore, Al Gore) but this is not one of them.


I wanted to learn about the credit industry - a very important industry that gives us the ability to buy homes and education among many other things. Our access to capital is what differentiates us from third world countries that are not as well developed. Muhammed Yunus has recognized this and won a Nobel Peace Price for his micro-finance programs.

There are negatives to the industry as well but the movie doesn't intelligently lay out any case - it just tries to get you to engage emotionally instead of engage in any type of critical thinking. What caused these people to get into debt? A message of personal responsibility was merely skated over.

There were a few facts that are good to know, but many others were horribly inaccurate or half-truths. I will not cite any for fear of being a spoiler but am chomping at the bit to do so.

Many people need education in credit/finance and it would be fabulous to have classes in high school to show how to use credit wisely (along with personal finance). Hopefully a naive well-meaning teacher doesn't use this movie to do the job.


The collection strategies used by collection companies, some of which are illustrated in "Maxed Out," are unsavory by any measure and can't be gainsaid. Nevertheless, the film seems not to know the meaning of the term "Personal responsibility." The folks who get into the kinds of trouble depicted by the movie got there because they lived beyond their means, the difference between their income and outgo being financed by credit card companies, albeit at outrageous rates. Still, the debtors either knew or should have known what they were getting into.

I agree, though, with the film's depiction of The Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005. The act was not really a "reform," but a limitation of the rights formerly provided to debtors to discharge their debts in bankruptcy. Even under the old law, nobody who wasn't desperate sought bankruptcy protection. To narrow its protections was an outrage, it seems to me.

Despite its propagandistic tone, one-sidedness, and anti-business attitudes, "Maxed Out" is occasionally informative and makes some useful points. Marginally recommended  if you have some stomach medicine nearby.


At one point, this film uses old footage from a 50's documentary on credit in which the narrator lists "character" as an essential characteristic for the responsible credit holder.

One can only imagine that the film's creator is lampooning this idea as old fashioned, since nowhere in this production is there a hint that personal irresponsibility has played a role in the downfall of all the "victims" depicted herein.

Not that the predatory lending the film details hasn't transformed the financial landscape of middle class America in the last 40 years--it certainly has--to its immense detriment. And the sham piety of credit card company reps testifying before Congress is more than a little sickening.

Certainly one can shake one's head at the misfortune associated with college student's being given credit, for which they are neither psychologically nor fiscally prepared.

But what are we to make of a middle aged woman, living in a large exurban subdivision home, who elected to pay her mortgage payments with credit upon the death of her husband? Nowhere is the question posed, (nor evidently entertained at the time) as to whether it was time to downsize into a domicile consonant with her income. Maybe she had ample reasons for doing what she did, fully justifiable reasons, but these we never learn...

This genuinely heart rending example, and a tragedy involving another woman--this time, a suicide resulting from a gambling addiction, inevitably recall the "character" issues raised in this movie's spoofy use of the old 50's film clip.

Then there's the lady professor from Harvard who assures us throughout that the country has been forced to embrace credit card debt in order to survive--prices being what they are today. (This attestation coming moments after witnessing the construction of a Las Vegas home with two (count em) washing machines and dryers is vaguely disconcerting.) Not that inflation is the only culprit. Oh no, for this we need to wait for the closing reels, in order to view the villain, (or villains) behind the curtain.

And then, of course, we find out who the real crooks are, (besides the credit card companies). You guessed it! President Bush, (both of them), and the late President Ronald Reagan. And Michael Moore isn't even listed in the credits ! (Predictably, "Katrina" is also shoehorned into the narrative for good measure.) One wonders why the film's blame doesn't extend to LBJ since Bank AmericaCard was introduced during his Administration.

If we are honest, we can certainly emphasize and recognize our collective weaknesses and tendencies to greed in each and all of the people the film depicts. And no small number of us probably shake our heads and say, "There but for the grace of God go I." But spending money you don't possess still has moral connotations--and unfortunately for this movie's audience, personal ethics have no place in the propagandistic world of commercialized victim hood.

In any case, the book is much better than the movie.


Credit is a tool, a very powerful and potentially very dangerous one, and if you don't know how to use it, or cannot use it correctly then DO NOT.

The producers want us to to feel sorry for these people who rack up debt, and then can't pay it. Not only do I not feel sorry for them, I feel contempt because we the responsible consumers and stock holders of those companies are the ones who have to pay for it.

What I found interesting is that the movie never talks about corporate debt. I wonder if the producers would have the same attitude when the situation is reversed. If a corporation floats junk bonds and then declares bankruptcy, are we to feel sorry for those stock holders that lose everything when the bond holders insist on repayment? Why is the reverse situation not shown as the corporation now being the victim?

The answer is that it's because this movie is liberal anti-corporate propaganda.

I agree there are predatory practices by these organizations. The nickle-and-diming and usury is outrageous, but that's because we as consumers let them get away with it. Nobody holds a gun to our head when we sign up, or make purchases. We know the fee's (or at least should have read the paperwork).

Perhaps what this country needs is debt licensing, where you're not allowed to use debt (much like you cannot use a car) until you've proved that you have a basic understanding of how to use it and the risks involved. Then, I bet you the same people would complain about how the government is now taking away our freedom (to be irresponsible).


Based upon the one of the most popular novels of all time, written by James Fenimore Cooper, this story follows the battle between the colonists, the French, who have teamed with the Indians through the eyes of a white man raised by Indians (Randolf Scott) who now consider him one of their own.

This movie is certainly not an epic classic. However, it's a fairly good time-waster.

First of all, due to 1936 technology, it is sometimes hard to hear the actors when they are not near the microphone, or when they are facing away from the position of the microphone. Another problem was that it was painfully obvious that the majority of the outdoor scenes were obviously done on a soundstage.

I was also not impressed with the majority of the cast. First of all, I felt little, if any, chemistry between all the major players. I also found many supporting cast members, as well as a few of the main cast, were just reciting their lines to each other. I just couldn't find most of the cast believable in their roles.

There is very mild violence, with absolutely no blood. You get people shot on-screen, or struck with a tomahawk, but there was no amount of blood at all. However, this is because of the censors at the time. There is also no strong language. Parents should be aware that there is absolutely nothing in this film that is inappropriate for children. The closest thing they come to anything pretty violent is one fist fight, where they speed the film up for a second.

The wardrobe is one of the few things that I liked in this movie. The costumes appeared to be authentic, from the period military uniforms to even the Indian clothing.

As for the soundtrack, there really isn't one. You get music during the opening and closing credits, music during a party scene and an American classic sung by extras. However, I have seen other movies from this era, and they are similar with music.

Even editing is poor in this film. Close-ups are poorly placed in scenes, and they are obvious.

I really couldn't get into this movie, and I doubt you could too. Check it out on television only if there is absolutely nothing else on.


Even if it weren't based on a book, this movie would have been horrible, and its worse because it is nothing like the classic book it was based on. I would recommend you read the book, but if all possible, pass by this sad excuse for a movie.

1/10


Mainly because of the technical issues of the DVD = the captions last for 3 microseconds so it is almost impossible to know (unless you understand one of 2 versions of Chinese)what are they saying. And they are forunatelly not talking too much. I rented this DVD because of the comments here on IMDB. Damn, pleople! What the hell did you see inthis movie. Every half-drunk drama/film student can shoot 88 minutes of this thing in 44 minutes. With lunch break included!!!

Scenes are slow so without any loss you can watch it on fast-forward. I'm not kidding.


Erskine Childers' 1903 novel The Riddle of the Sands may have given birth to the spy story, but cinematically it's a non-starter and was filmed at least forty years too late. Much of what made the novel so thrilling and controversial is either uncinematic (navigating hidden sandbanks and crosscurrents just doesn't photograph) or old hat (gee, the Germans were planning a war?), and so it proves in Tony Maylam's handsome adaptation. Michael York (reunited with his Logan's Run co-star Jenny Agutter in one of her few 70s films not to require nudity) and Simon MacCorkindale may be ideally cast as turn of the century Oxford chaps messing about in the river in the Frisian Islands, but they're not exactly oozing screen chemistry even if they can almost get away with lines like "Chuck it Carruthers" or "People just don't behave like that  not even Germans!" Worse, there's absolutely no sense of threat or momentum, with much of the action recounted in flashback or, in the final collision, apparently missed by the camera.

On the plus side, Christopher Challis' scope photography is lovely and Howard Blake's score is hauntingly beautiful, but it's all too cosy to hold the interest for an hour and three quarters. One of the Rank's last pictures, it's hard to dislike but equally hard to find engaging. This is one that really needed to have been made in 1939, not 1979.

The UK DVD release has no extras but does at least boast a 2.35:1 transfer.


Despite this film having one of the more amazing groups of character actors for support, this is truly an awful film. It just goes to show you that no matter what talent you have assembled, it means nothing if the writing is bad--and boy, is it BAD! Even the combined supporting talents of Frank McHugh, Allen Jenkins, Akim Tamiroff, Franklin Pangborn, Edgar Kennedy, Sterling Holloway and others couldn't help Ginger Rogers elevate this mess to even mediocrity. The bottom line is the basic plot isn't at all believable and the dialog isn't any better. Normally when I watch older films, I am able to suspend disbelief and just enjoy, but this time it was a major chore not to just turn the movie off about midway through it! Ginger plays a radio star who is portrayed as so saccharine that it's impossible to believe that the public could stand her, though according to the film she's America's Sweetheart! Well, Ginger rebels against this as well, but her answer is to hang out in nightclubs and get drunk AND have sex (it's a "Pre-Code" film, so this sort of subject was NOT taboo in 1933). It's all very broadly acted and written and is supposed to be a sort of screwball comedy--the problem is that none of it is funny. What happens next and how everyone becomes happy in the end isn't really anything I want to discuss--I just want to never see this film again. It's a good thing Ms. Rogers had the Fred Astaire films to boost her career--if it was up to drivel like this, she never would have become famous!


Though it's tempting to regard every black and white crime thriller as noir, there's a danger of reading too much into the merely monotone.

As here. This isn't film noir but film monotone, devoid of the irony, and the anger, of genre classics and instead graced by, and in part compensated with, some often sassy dialog and Cochran's acting.

As a movie, it's a mess: the title relates to a location of stolen money, but the money isn't stolen until well past the half way point in the running time, and so nobody's in hell, public or private, for almost an hour but are instead laboriously working their way to that point in the script when the movie can actually begin.

A curio for Siegel fans, and those with fond memories of Republic, but otherwise more like purgatory than the brand of Hades it purports to chronicle.


I watched this movie because I was expecting to get an inside look into the real Charles Manson. I wanted to see if I could figure out why he did the things that he did and why in the world anyone would follow him.

This documentary begins with a very creepy voiced narrator telling you that basically this is Charlie's turn to explain things. All the songs in the film are very satanic. The whole thing has a very dark feel about it.

Charlie spends a lot of time preaching or teaching as he would call it. He compares himself with Richard Nixon and discusses how "everyone has Lucifer inside of them". The man really seems a mix of possessed and crazy to me. I did not really gain any understanding of why he did things that he did. I just got further proof that this person is exceptionally disturbed, not gifted as he thinks and as the film tries to persuade you.

The film takes you to the famous Spaun ranch and shows pictures of then and now. Charlie tells stories of the ranch and explains how his "world" is still there. He goes on and on about how he does not live in our world, he is above and beyond us. Our world and the United States is the devil, an evil machine.

I have watched a lot of documentaries about killers and criminals, trying to figure out why someone would do the things that they do, how they must reason it in their mind. This is unlike anything I have ever seen. At times, it is very boring, at times unbelievable. I got a very creepy feeling while watching it and confess, I did not finish the whole film. I lost interest in listening to Charlie rant and rave, he is clearly insane.

All in all, you get a feeling of perhaps what his followers heard and saw from him. I bet that his story has not changed much. It didn't make sense then, and it does make sense now.


The very dark plot could have worked, but its all too exploitative, sleazy and cheesy. As interesting as it is to see Mark Lester play a different character to that he plays in Oliver, it doesn't stop him being incredibly wooden. Also, every time something f&*ked up happens in the film, the characters show very little reaction to it, which is infuriating. Its a mess too, the end especially, which is very shocking, and was probably one of my favourite moments, but it seems almost tacked on as an afterthought it happens so randomly.

Basically its just twisted soft porn (disturbingly almost verging towards child porn at times) masquerading as an intelligent thriller.

Don't listen to the other reviewers, its not worth tracking down.


On the one hand it is very satisfying to see any and every kind of activity which helps to strengthen a united Europe. Thus, each and every addition of countries forming the European Union can only be hailed as a great success. I love Europe: it is the cultural cradle of our planet; it is a microcosm of our planet; it has the greatest mixture of cultures and languages of the entire planet. Europe is not perfect: nothing is perfect. However, Europe is the insignia of multiracial integration, as can be found nowhere else on our spaceship earth.

But from there to Eurovision...................

Excuse me, but there is a great violation of perspectives. Evident political overtones and manipulation are in process, such that the millions of telephone calls - on "special" numbers which are the most expensive, thus generating wealth for TV companies and the organizers - are just one gigantic fraud. However, with all the hype, there is more than enough ingenuousness to keep the inexorable wheels turning - and churning out much of the same about the same each year.

Gone are the days when countries sang in their own language - ABBA made sure of that with their pretty songs - and nearly all participating countries sing in English. Therein lies the disaster: it all sounds the same. What but, forsooth, if the contesting singer is from Latvia or Croatia, if they sing in English? Only France and Spain, occasionally Germany, keep to their own languages. Other than that, "Eurovision" is nothing more than a fastuous pop concert, carefully rehearsed and re-rehearsed, so that in the end, it might be a good idea if a hearse carted it off to some out-of-city rubbish-dump and left it there unceremoniously and unprostituted for future generations.

But as is the case with most contests, whether they be Hollywood Oscars, Pullitzar Prizes, or the Eurovision Song Contest, they only exist to perpetuate themselves and make profits - good hard cash for all involved.


Oh yes European culture and the Eurovision Song Contest which is like Adolph Hitler and racial harmony appearing in the same sentence . Actually this years contest was far worse than usual because the tunes seemed confused . Croatia's song started off with some bagpipe music while the entries from Greece and the United Kingdom sounded more Turkish than the entry by the Turks . Oh and the Greeks did a bit of riverdancing which probably was a cynical attempt to fool the voters into thinking they were watching Ireland who often win but for some reason didn't qualify for the final this year

Okay lets be truthful and say I was hoping the best looking female contestant was going to win . I guess I shouldn't be too disappointed since the Greek contestant had the best legs and she won while Romania had the best cleavage and she came third with the Israeli motek also doing very well . Unfortunately there was a miscarriage of justice with some ugly fat bird from Malta getting the runner up spot which adds fuel to the rumours that it's only middle aged homosexuals who vote in this contest .

As for the music it was instantly forgettable . Norway does deserve some credit since they contributed an act that seemed very similar to a tribute band for Brit glam rockers The Darkness and Denmark's entry could easily have passed as a respectable POP IDOL contender . Talking of POP IDOL Britain was represented by Javine a former contestant of one of the reality pop shows but her performance on the night was very very poor and she ended up near the bottom of the final vote

As for the voting itself this what gets my goat . Countries continue to vote for their neighbours regardless of the merit of the songs themselves . Greece and Cyprus give each other twelve points while the Balkan , Baltic and Scandinavian countries scratch each others backs . It's totally ridiculous as is the fact that while only 24 countries take part a total of 39 countries vote . In fact I think the majority of the running time was taken up with the voting rather than the singing . Good job nobody takes this competition seriously otherwise it would cause world war three


I was at my local blockbuster and was turned on to this movie. Also I heard that it was Tarantinoesque. Me being a big Tarantino fan, was excited to see it. Let's put it this way, I put it in and wasted two hours of my life. The writing in this film is for lack of a better word, appalling. I wrote better stuff when I was a freshman in high school. The script was full of cliché and all around bad dialog. Another beef I had with it was the action. It was like they watched an 8 year old play with action figures and based the action in the movie on this. The plot is stupid as well, there is a twist at the end (which I will not disclose) that made me feel embarrassed for the writer. I also couldn't get a feel for what time they were in, it seemed simi future based on the police garb, but then the cars and everything else seemed modern...Weird. In retrospect, had they thought everything out a little more and took the thousands of clichés out of the script, this movie has potential for good, but just turned out a stinky crap fest. See it if you must, but don't say I didn't warn you.


When I was staying on holiday in Wales this year, I had the misfortune of being stuck in a house with a VCR player and a video of the cheapo movie 24 Hours In London.

After watching the first ten minutes or so, the acting seemed okay, the plot seemed to have potential, and the cutting on the titles section was first rate.

Then the film plummeted like a goose with no wings. Without giving too much away (The film does enough of that itself with heavily signposted plot elements), 24 Hours In London swings unsteadily between what appears to be an attempt at a cockney gangster flick and outright slapstick comedy.

The latter half of the film is particularly bizarre, with plot holes so large that the entire film seems to be progressing at random.

So why did I bother watching it to the end? Well, I keep asking myself that. Is it because, despite all the shockingly-bad acting, there were a few actors who could actually convey emotion? Is it because the lumbering comedy moments were actually pretty funny, in an oafish way? Or is it that maybe, despite all its glaring errors and hilariously wooden acting, the film's shoestring charm manages to shine through? I honestly couldn't say.


In London, the powerful gangster Christian (Gary Olsen) decides to eliminate the competition, killing all the rival gangs. In a park, after a slaughter, a black woman survives and becomes the main witness against Christian. The police force keeps her under protection, but a squealer informs Christian every step taken by the detectives in charge of protecting the witness. "24 Hours in London" has a screenplay with so many holes that looks like a Swiss cheese. Indeed, it is a cheesy movie, with situation so ridiculous that becomes funny. The problem is that it is not a comedy. There are many inconsistent plot points and the situations are amazingly absurd. I noted there are many votes, most of them from England, giving ten stars to this film and misleading readers like me. I believe these users were hired by the production to promote this flick, since all of them coincidentally have only one short review in IMDb eulogizing "24 Hours in London". Otherwise, they are from the same asylum. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Testemunha Chave" ("Key Witness")


Sorry, but it's not...

This is the WORST film ever made! I picked it up one day and made the mistake of watching this thing through, but it was quite a struggle to get to the end.

The plot is bad; the acting worse; and the writing would seem to have come from a Chimp with Down Syndrome.

If you watch this, I salute you for watching from start to finish. I had to take the batteries out of my remote to keep from hitting eject. I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment.

Unlike those films that are "So bad, they're good" this is the kind of movie that even a few pints can not make enjoyable...


I was initially sucked in by the cover of this movie. It promised 'gang warfare'. It was apparently somewhat futuristic. There was a review on the cover that described it at 'funny, sexy, clever slice of British action.' 24 Hours in London was neither. The characters were so typical and the acting was so poor I wasn't sure if it was meant to be satire. I guess it was kind-of funny due to the fact that it was so bad.

Not to mention the outrageous story. A bad guy that bombs heaps of other buildings (including the millennium dome) in order to create a police distraction. Why didn't he just bomb the hotel? I guess the story at base level is OK, and there's a semi-OK twist, but it's all let down by poor acting, 2D characters and some failed attempts at humor.

Don't waste your money.


first and foremost, I'm an American. i live in the united states. yet for some reason I've become slightly obsessed with British culture, movies, literature, music and whatnot. my favorite film would have to be trainspotting, and lock stock blew me away. unfortunately, 24 in London did not. in fact, it had a reverse affect, inducing sleep. horrid horrid horrid everything, from the ridiculous dialouge to the plot that had more holes in it than a mesh t-shirt. there was virtually no plot, and literally no main character. i felt cheated by the end of the movie, cheated by the fact that I've lost a precious two hours of my life i could have spent reading a good book. rubbish, please don't fall victim to this movie, and anyone telling you otherwise needs to seriously reconsider what they are thinking.


I was forced to endure this film a while ago, and can honestly say that it is one of the worst films I have ever seen.

The plot (such as it was) was completely derivative, nicking ideas from just about every gangster film since "Brighton Rock."

The characters make cardboard seem fully rounded, mostly being off-cuts from the Quentin Tarantino "chirpy-arrogant-violent-criminal-with-no-regard-for-anyone-else" block, while the script was abysmal.

The lack of anything good about this film is particularly disappointing, as it was the last film Gary Olsen made. It's a great shame that his last appearance should be as a barely thought-out criminal weirdo with pseudo-mystical characteristics forced upon him in a vain attempt to make the character seem interesting.

This is a heap of rubbish with no redeeming features whatsoever, and should be avoided at all costs.


I guess I should not be voting because I haven't seen the whole movie. But thats just what made me vote. I just couldn't watch it. I always watch the whole movie if I start watching one and I think I have only once before had to stop.

This wouldn't be so bad alone. It's just a really bad movie and I figured it out and stopped watching. BUT...

Then I go to IMDb and find out that the makers of the movie (I assume that the people that gave this movie 10 have to be the people behind this crap) are trying to boost their own exceptionally bad movie. There is no justice in world if this movie gets 10 out of 10. This was my first comment in IMDb but I just had to do my part to make sure that anybody doesn't spend any money on this crap.

Could be that the whole movie wasn't as bad but hopefully I'll never know.


Really, it looked like a nice movie with lots of nice killings and nice bloody gore; all that i and my girlfriend love to watch in a Sunday afternoon. But no; this is one of the worst movies i've ever seen, it has bad acting, bad action sequences, bad scripting, awful sense of humor, it's all bad. I have to say that i'm a B Movie fan, i love low budget movies and i can say with every words --- THIS IS A COMPLETE WASTE OF MONEY, TIME, ACTORS AND EQUIPMENT---. With 1/3 of the money that Alexander Finbow had to do this i would be able to do the Portuguese equivalent to "The Lord Of The Rings". I don't know how could anyone be interested in making movies like this one. PANTS!


this movie is the definition of awful, this movie really sucked. It was a cheap rip off of a Woo film were the main actors put on fake British accents and shoot anything that moves. Now that's no reason to give this movie a one it could still be fun, right? No it can't the action sucked. there is no cool action moves or stylish camera-work just the camera in front of a guy who pulls the trigger on his gun. The only reason i give this film (if you can call it that) one star is because of the movie's case lured me into actually buying it and the beginning credits music, if you are stuck with the movie don't watch it you'll have a better time staring at the case and listening to the beginning credits music. in conclusion, this movie isn't an action flick because the action just will give you a headache, this movie isn't a comedy because it's not funny, and it certainly is not a British gangster movie seeing that the creators of the film probably don't even know the definition of cockney is, to sum it all up, as a good British Gangstar movie would say "stay away from this Brad Pitt". Recomondations: for a good British gangster movies look up Snatch, Lock stock and two smokin barrels, and if you seen those try to find Gangstar no.1. not as good but pretty close


If you can sit through this movie without killing yourself or someone next to you who may have been involved in the selection process, then you are person who has a will of steel and should not be wasting his time watching movies but teaching some sort eastern Shinto religion.

This movie really really really sucks..I don't know how much more I can emphasize that!


This is an awfully bad movie. The plot is so, how can I put this, USELESS I really can't understand why they bothered filming it. This is a waste of money, for the producer and the audience. Believe it or not, the plot is not the worst thing about it. This film is in a way educational. If you want to be an actor, see this film and you'll see great examples on horrible acting. But then again you probably don't need to se this mess to understand that.


Amateuristic crap, nothing else to say about it. Sorry. Waste of any energy u put in to it.


I really don't understand why there are so many excessively positive user comments for this film. The story borrows heavily from lots of other films but never does anything as well as the originals.

As for being funny, I think the viewer would need to be very drunk to find it funny. Sure there are some humourous moments but they are few and far between. I doubt this film was intended to be funny apart from one scene where Christian sends a rival gang to do some of his dirty work, where it turns into farcical slapstick that's completely disjoint from the rest of the film.

Olsen does a surprisingly good job of playing Christian and most of the performances are fine. It's a shame that the script is so poor. It's riddled with clichés and sleep inducing dialog.


Just a lame mobster flick attempting to be entertainment. I enjoy a good gangster movie but this one missed the mark by a mile. Poorly written and plain senseless & dumb violence insulted my intelligence. You'd be better off spending 24 hours elsewhere.


***SLIGHT SPOILERS*** Maybe some spoilers, but it really doesn't matter...

Wow. When you look at the cover of this film, and see that it's a London crime film.... you kind of get high hopes for this movie. Make no mistake, this is really REALLY bad. I've never submitted a comment on a movie before, but I HAD to for this one.... that must say something. First of all, the actors in this movie make the actors in soap operas and pornos look like Oscar winners. The acting is that bad. There isn't one believable, entertaining, interesting character in this thing. Well, the one "tough guy" of the four goons (the short bald one) was mildly entertaining, but he got killed off pretty quickly.... darn. I also read that there were some great "one-liners" in this movie, but I didn't hear any. There's a really lame twist at the end.... big surprise. Oh, it's also a lot of fun when you can see the dead bodies breathing (I haven't seen that blunder in film in quite some time). The whole thing is just really sloppy and uninteresting. It could probably be one of the worst movies I've ever seen. I guess it has some decent violence and gunplay in it, but even it is rediculous and unrealistic, with very poor effects (big flashes of light when someone gets shot from point blank range). It also looks like none of these people have ever fired or held a gun before, for that matter. Rent it if you must, but this movie is pretty much just a waste of time.


Pants Pants Pants Rubbish Rubbish poor poor very boring and a complete waste of money. Pants Pants Pants cliched terrible script and dialogue which was from the start impossible to deliver and wooden the performances didn't help. Wanted my money back, tried to get it back and was given it back when I said the quality of the tape was so poor it looked like a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy recorded off a machine with dirty heads that were fifteen years old. A complete waste of video tape that could of been better used recording a shopping channels content. Avoid like the plague. Pants Pants Pants!


I thought I had seen terrible movies in my life, but this one takes the cake... It's by far the worse movie ever made and I have no idea how it won the awards that it did... Save yourselves the time and agony and watch something else, anything else...


Sorry, I really didn't care for this movie. I wanted to very much. I just couldn't make myself like it.

All of the plot points center on a shower in a vacation house on the Cote d'Azur. So much happens in the shower that not titling it Le Douche is almost false advertising. If the shellfish referred to in the French title--and in song--have some sly double entendre meaning, it went over my head. Are they referring to males and females acting like males and females? Oh. How clever.

The comedic slash farce-like plot never interested me for one moment.

I didn't like the characters very much either, all of whom were self-centered and deceiving each other in some way. I particularly disliked the son who is, I think, supposed to be sexy and cute and the main attraction for us gay guys. I found his nonstop petulance and chip-on-shoulder teenager act really irritating but not quite as irritating as his ridiculous lion's mane hairdo. And I usually like guys with long hair. . . . .

But the worst, for me, was seeing the characters "step outside the frame" of the movie and sing songs directly to the viewer. Let me tell you, Umbrellas of Cherbourg it ain't. It only happens a couple times, thank god, but that was more than enough. Could this be intended as a self-referential tongue-in-cheek comment on French films by a French filmmaker? I don't think so, but that might be one explanation. . . .


Many of my generation still regret the demise of the traditional Hollywood B movie made by major studios with high production values; and intended primarily for late night showings, or drive in theatres, where a simple linear story line was all that was required for audiences who just wanted to relax. Occasionally one of these films, such as "French Quarter" which rated far more highly than most, has remained memorable long after it has disappeared from cinemas and video rental libraries; but most B movies had approximately the same relationship to major film releases as pulp paperback fiction has to the novels of Galsworthy, Ibsen or Tolstoy - and all have an important role to play. However despite the introduction of plentiful eye candy as an additional attraction by film makers such as Russ Meyer and Andy Sidalis, the true B movies proved unable to survive the competition of cable television. They have been largely superseded by "made for TV" films created inexpensively on electronic media by production companies without major studio resources, and only in exceptional cases later transferred to traditional film for showing in theatres. Since a large proportion of the market for them is now the late night film showings provided in most hotels, they generally continue to incorporate some nudity to add eye candy to their appeal and also frequently include soft-porn sequences showing simulated sexual couplings, often with little or no relationship to the story line (which can sometimes be squeezed right out). Such films no longer provide the pure relaxation that we used to be able to expect from any of the old Hollywood B movies.

A few of them are exceptions, taking care to retain an interesting story line without demanding too much attention from somebody relaxing after a hard day. These deserve viewers respect even if they are low budget productions and some cast members have limited acting ability. When the production values and acting are above average they can be well worth searching out. An advance review of Wicked Temptations led me (despite its lurid title) to believe that this might be such a film, but it unfortunately suffers from a split personality. It stars Monique Parent (credited here as Scarlet Johansine). An experienced actress, she has competently played a long string of parts during the past 15 years, including many roles in traditional B style movies. Here she plays Samantha Sharpe a glamorous but fairly hard boiled private detective investigating the suspected murder of the wife of a businessman, in a story which is very similar to that of Raymond Chandler's thriller "The Lady in the Lake" (although this novel was not officially credited in the film version I saw). The original intention appears to have been to use a sexy novel to create a movie which would be a sexy thriller with lots of eye candy. Monique was probably a very good choice to play this part, and the result should have been a very successful low budget thriller. But somewhere along the road it seems to have been decided that the ultimate product would be more successful as an "adult" film - presumably intended for late night hotel circuits. This decision seems to have required the very clumsy addition of a number of superfluous and irritating soft-core porn sequences to what was a reasonably compact and coherent crime thriller. For example, the film opens with a rather lengthy soft core coupling sequence showing a man cavorting with two women to background music. Although perhaps typical of many soft-core porn films, this is totally redundant here. The same sequence reappears twice later, first as the source of still photographs (the existence of which had been indicated by instantaneously superimposing rectangular frame lines on the screen during this introductory sequence), and as a videotape. These two later scenes would have needed little or no change had the long and totally unnecessary introductory sequence not been included, and the film would then have opened logically by introducing its principal characters. Deleting it would immensely strengthen the films' credentials as a legitimate thriller. I suspect that many potential viewers actually turned it off during the 4 minutes or so that this sequence lasted.

This problem unfortunately proved endemic throughout the film - as it progressed I found I was repeatedly asking myself whether I was watching a crime thriller or a soft porn film with virtually no story. Ultimately, as this film is edited, about one third of the screen time is devoted to sexual activities that have little or nothing to do with the story-line. Give all the material filmed to a decent editor and he would probably be able to create two different movies each capable of holding the interest of a different audience group; but no editor in the world could have created a film that would hold the interest of both groups from the material which I saw screened. The resulting mishmash left me angrily wondering why I cannot award it a rating of zero (or even a negative rating for spoiling potentially enjoyable material). This was a great pity as I felt the film could have been an interesting lightweight thriller, featuring competent acting and enough quality eye candy to help retain the viewers interest despite an admittedly lightweight story-line. Nowadays most viewers expect eye candy in films of this genre, and also accept sequences showing sexual couplings that contribute to the story line. But lengthy soft or hard porn sequences that have been arbitrarily introduced when not required quickly make for an extremely boring thriller. Those who want to watch nothing but sexual couplings of all types have no problem finding suitable material; but with the conventional romance, horror story, or thriller such sequences have no place unless integral to the film-script.


Most people love this movie, my girlfriend included. It's considered a classic. But I saw this for the first time recently, and this film just did not work for me at all. At all. I found the characters unlikable, I found the story and how it played out to be totally ridiculous, I did not find anything even remotely funny or cute. Worst of all, it just seemed to go on and on and on and never go anywhere. When it wrapped up, I heard the music that indicated to me the film was ending, and I laughed harder than I did for any part of the movie because after all that going on and on and going nowhere, it ended with the result of: STILL having gone nowhere!

This film's considered by some historians to be a turning point for Jimmy Stewart with a bravura performance. I never wanted Jimmy Stewart off my television screen so badly. I wanted him locked up within ten minutes, throw away the key, BAM! Movie over. Instead, we have to suffer through inept doctors, screaming family members, Jesse White somehow sold to us as a romantic lead and a whole LOT of drawn-out scenes with Jimmy telling stories of an imaginary rabbit to people who can't decide from one minute to the next if this guy should be locked up in a nuthouse or deified as the Greatest Man Alive.

Just dreadful. I'm sorry, but I don't see how this was a Pulitzer Prize-winning play, much less a movie classic.


This is by far the worst movie I have ever seen, and I enjoy watching bad movies. There wasn't one scene were I can walk away saying: 'Well, that wasn't too bad.', because I can't lie in this review. First off, the child actors are by far the worst possible, the casting crew was either drunk or mentally handicapped. They probably cast them if they looked the part. Secondly, there are enough clichés found in this 'movie' to make a grown man sick. There is really nothing else I can say about this movie. You really have to see it for yourself.

There is much entertainment found in this movie; but not in the way the makers intended.

In summary; a steaming pile of feces'


Slappy and the stinkers is a children's movie that was released in the theaters, but is more of a made for TV quality film. The jokes are really juvenile and the style of the movie gives it a really cheesy effect, and no that isn't a positive thing.

I know this is just a movie, but the story is very unrealistic. If you ever find this movie in a store like Wal-Mart, you'll find it in a bin full of crappy discount movies on VHS. Bronson Pinchot does a good job with what he has to work with anyhow. Some of the child actors are okay, in fact, a couple have done more acting in Nickelodeon shows.

As I stated above, the quality is bad, though some of the acting is decent, and however they trained the sea lion is pretty impressive though. I think this movie does a good job at defining a message. That message is stay away from the discount bin and watch something much better.


31/100. I realize it is a family oriented film, but that doesn't mean children don't have brains. It is needlessly inane, with that gross humor they so often put in films of this kind. (throwing up, farting etc.) It is a waste for everyone involved in the movie. The silly plot is just so far out there it makes you wonder what nitwit thought up something like this. With the poor grammar the children use, their misbehaving antics and their relentless defiance of authority, I hope most parents skip this one for their kids. There are so many creative and worthy family movies out there that are so much better than this. The quality of the movie is also well below par.


Maybe I'm just a softy but I thought this was a wonderful (and believable!) family film. The expressions on the children's faces when they first see Slappy was priceless -- and the final scene was nothing but laughs. I'm a literature college professor so I've read and seen my share of "stinkers". This one smells good!


I AM NOT LYNNE BATES MY NAME IS RITCHIE LYNNE IS MY MOM IM JUST USING HER ACCOUNT! This is, without a doubt, the worst film ever made. I'm 12, and I have seen my share of cheesy comedies, Good Burger, Heavyweights and the rest. After seeing Good Burger I thought to myself "It cant get any more worse than this!". I was wrong. Terribly wrong. Slappy and the Stinkers is the worst family movie ever, I am even ashamed to say I have a watched-once-only VHS copy of it in my wardrobe that I got for my 9th birthday. The good thing is that it only lasts 76 minutes, IMDb have the running time wrong! I cannot list all the bad points, as there are so many obvious cheesy kid movie catches in it. In one scene, a man slips on a skateboard, crashes into a crowd of people, LITERALLY flies across the room, and lands in a large aquarium tank, and emerges with a octopus that looks its right out of "The adventures of Timmy the Tooth" stuck to his face! Give me a break! I really can't explain just how crap it is, you have to see it to believe it. Snap up a copy quick, it'll be in the 99cent video bin with Good Burger!


This movie lacks one thing. Do you know what this is? Brains! In one scene a little boy is riding his bike up a hill, but the bike is carrying a bath tub and a seal in the bath tub! I don't think Hulk could do that! One word describes this story. Bad. A child could make up a better plot!


Man,did Disney really make this. With how corney this movie is. It's so stupid I mean at the end Sonny peddling that bike faster than a car. If you ask me this film really stinks. And I'm not giving it a break because it was made in 1998 so overall I give it a 3.


"The Wild Geese" presents a terrific concept, a cast of well-known players who work well together, and crisp cinematography by Jack Hildyard that takes full advantage of the sun-bleached African veldt. So it's a disappointment the filmmakers couldn't make something worth watching.

Based on a novel by Daniel Carney, "The Wild Geese" presents Col. Faulkner (Richard Burton), a hard-drinking soldier of fortune still shaking off the pain from losing good-guy African leader Julius Limbani (Winston Ntshona) to a cruel dictator years ago. But Limbani remains alive, and a British tycoon offers Faulkner big money to get Limbani out of prison and to safety.

Burton looks about ready to keel over, but he's still Burton, convincing in his command, and he's backed up by Richard Harris, Roger Moore, and Hardy Kruger as his officers. Alas, the film never gels. Director Andrew V. McLaglen, good in the 1960s at marrying action-adventure and comedy, seems lost playing to a grittier '70s sensibility, and with a script that presents the mercenaries with one bloody setback after another. A message of racial brotherhood is advanced by Ntshona and Kruger with some jaw-droppingly bad dialogue, as Kruger's South African character, Coetze, drops his deep-rooted racism after a few minutes of carrying Limbani on his back.

"We need each other, white man, and that's the way it should be," Limbani says.

"You're beginning to sound good to me," Coetze replies. "Maybe we need you. Maybe you're just the man."

Coetze's transformation is way too pat. Also pat is the way a fort full of soldiers is eradicated in broad daylight by spraying cyanide into a barrack full of sleeping soldiers. In broad daylight?

Things don't exactly purr along for the mercenaries after that, but even the complications feel forced and unnatural. So do Moore's trademark groan-inducing witticisms and a homosexual medic played by Kenneth Griffith who flounces about the mercenaries' training camp and writes out a will leaving everything to his proctologist.

Pluses include a key plot twist in the middle of the film and a sequence when Moore drops his smarm long enough to make a mobster eat a bag of heroin at gunpoint. Harris and Burton have such good chemistry its surprising they only worked together this one time. And the film makes decent use of a deep supporting cast of top-flight Brits, including Barry Forster, Jack Watson, and Stewart Granger as Faulkner's steely employer.

But you know you are in trouble in the first minute of the film, when rocker Joan Armatrading tries to channel Joan Baez with an utterly tuneless ballad while a 007-ish title sequence flashes up images of suffering Africans. Never mind most of the suffering Africans we see thereafter are the guys being shot to death by Burton & crew - it looks like McLaglen had the same eight guys get shot over and over to save money and hoped no one would notice. "The Wild Geese" promises two-fisted entertainment, but what you get instead too soft-headed to work on even the shallowest of levels.


This is yet another of those hastily-cobbled-together botched jobs that appeared between the mid 1970's and mid 1980's. A new generation of action guys had still to establish themselves at this time, so the old brigade must soldier on - literally in this case.

Basically, the philosophy seemed to be; don't worry about a plot, don't bother with a script, and there's no need for direction. Just put a bunch of popular actors in the lead roles and the movie will run itself.

The formula doesn't work.

There's Richard Burton, Hardy Kruger, Roger Moore, Richard Harris, Stewart Grainger; any one of whom would have single-handedly carried a movie a decade before. Here, they bumble about, puffing and panting like a geriatric jamboree. Burton looks particularly woebegone. What with his bloated features and ill-fitting helmet, he doesn't look as though he will even survive the parachute jump. It's so sad; most of these players have a catalogue of excellent roles to their credit.

The team's mission is to rescue some honest African politician or other (anybody ever seen one of those?) being held hostage. We see them blundering through a series of set-piece situations that might have been penned by children. They attack a compound, knocking out the watch-tower guards using a highly dubious crossbow, despite having silenced firearms. They neutralise the sleeping guards with Cyanide gas, which apparently kills with a single whiff (don't you believe it!) when they could as easily shoot them, too. The canisters have 'cyanide!' stamped on their sides, like a Jerry Anderson prop. Later, one of their trucks conks-out on a highly exposed bridge. Wouldn't you just know it? And what does the rest of the convoy do? Why; they immediately stop as well. Obviously. There they are, all lined up like skittles. So that when an aeroplane arrives to strafe and bomb them, it's spoilt for choice (actually, that's the cunning plan; confuse the pilot). Even as the attack is taking place, some of the trucks still haven't been evacuated. The plane also carries a torpedo-bomb thing. And the pilot, who is apparently a former 617 Squadron ace, releases it down the river-bed where it bounces along in a fashion that would have brought tearful eyes to Messrs Barnes, Wallis and Gromit. The thing detonates just at the right moment, engulfing the bridge and trucks in fire, and flooding th Ruhr valley (that bit was edited).

The fire on the bridge has split the team. So the leaders drive on to their rendezvous and the tail-enders must catch-up on foot. This exposes us to a tedious morality act, as Hardly Kruger plays an embittered racist Afrikaaner who must piggy-back this honest black bloke through the bush. We endure a soppy debate about races and land, culminating in assertions that both blacks and whites need each other, for the sake of the country. Yeah, man, right-on. It's sphincter-punckeringly banal, like the outpourings of some particularly dumb socialist under-graduate who thinks he knows all about the world because he's glanced through 'Das Kapital' in between drunken campus orgies.

The whole thing just grinds along to its inevitable and predictable denouement.

There's absolutely nothing to commend it. Acting, choreography, script, story, lighting, camera-work, sound, music; every aspect is lifted straight out of the 'Beginners Guide To Drama'. All those old lags must have been desperate to top-up their pension funds. Chuck it into the same sin-bin as 'Shout At The Devil', 'Cassandra Crossing', 'Ashanti' and one or two other big-name cringe-worthies of the period.

It always strikes me as strange that some adventure movies can be so good - 'The Guns Of Navarone', 'Where Eagles Dare', and so on, whilst others - like this - are beyond redemption. The people are there, the money's there, yet one grips your attention whilst the other sends you to sleep. Can a competent director be the only difference?

Somewhere amongst the commentaries there is one from EUAN LLOYD, the producer, thanking viewers for watching 'his' movie. I suppose it's big of him to take the blame.


Richard Burton was always a wooden film actor and an overacting ham who just recited the lines in that horrid chain smoker's gravel voice of his. He was far too old for this film and looked like he was about to drop dead at any minute. All the other actors were too old and obviously unfit for their parts as well. This is a racist film, and it was made in South Africa in the apartheid era. This was a hugely controversial decision. Roger Moore, a Tory tax exile who should never have been cast as James Bond since he was already too old when he started, had no problems with funding apartheid throughout the 1970s. This is just a very bad, predictable and clichéd film by that hack director Andrew V McLaglen. To be avoided.

0/10.


Could you make a worse tv movie? You could, but it wouldn't get on your nerves like this one. Holly Hunter plays possibly the most annoying character I've ever had the opportunity see. The only thing that makes this movie watchable is the very small appearance by Andy Richter from the Conan O'Brien show. Who cares if this is a true story, I feel cheated for the 2 hours I spent watching this film.


Some sources (including the afore-mentioned "Stracult") consider this to be a superior film to MALABIMBA  THE MALICIOUS WHORE (1979), of which this is a revamp (and therefore sufficiently different not to qualify as a direct remake) but I certainly disagree. To begin with, there is only a fair amount of nudity but little sex in itself and none of the hardcore variety; in fact, it's rather heavier on horror content compared to the original, even going so far as to include a completely irrelevant (if reasonably eerie) marauding mummy scene!

On the whole, SATAN'S BABY DOLL is a much more somber film and, consequently, a good deal less entertaining than MALABIMBA itself (which, at least, had rampant nudity and campiness to compensate for its other deficiencies). Conversely, the later film is a more compact affair with not only less characters (7 in all) but a much shorter running time at only 74 minutes. Another good score is provided and I thought Mariangela Giordano (who, at 45, certainly looks great in the nude) was better here than she was in MALABIMBA. The lead, Jacqueline Dupre', is quite lovely as well (though I personally preferred Laennec) and, like her predecessor, this was her only movie to date.

Unfortunately, the cons greatly outnumber the pros in this case: the baffling butler characterization (and the resulting hideously hammy performance) is a definite eyesore, as is the sloppy editing (especially during the scene where the paraplegic uncle imagines Giordano writhing passionately in bed). Spaghetti Western regular Aldo Sambrell is curious casting for the unsympathetic vengeful head of the family and his sluttish wife (whose spirit possesses the teenage lead) is not all that attractive either (which did not prevent her from getting it on with the novice while still alive)!

When everything is said and done, I don't think SATAN'S BABY DOLL merited a DVD release of its own and would have been better served as a double-feature with MALABIMBA...not least because such a move would have decreased their collective purchase price and saved shelf space to prospective buyers! Curiously enough, there's no option to watch either film without English subtitles and I had to manually remove them during playback!


I got this print from Video Search of Miami, not really knowing for sure what I was in for. I was under the impression that this was a possession movie, and it is, sort of. Unfortunately, all of the characters are so boring that after a while you stop caring who's doing what to whom. The basic plotline is this: young girl becomes possessed by the spirit of her dead mother while left in the care of her tyrannical father. There are a number of other people living in the house, but it isn't really explained what they're doing there. In fact, there isn't much in the way of a plot either. There a few really sleazy moments which I won't give away for you exploitation fans. Ultimately, this one is for diehard fans of the genre only.


Godefroy, a Middle Ages knight, kills the father of his fiancee by mistake. He then is given a magic potion by a sorcerer to return in the past. But the sorcerer didn't mix the potion right and so Godefroy and his servant Jacquouille are being sent in the future. This leads to lots of problems, misunderstandings, some funny scenes and endless dialogues (which are supposed to be funny too).

Considering that this is the highest grossing movie ever in France I was quite disappointed. I saw both the French (original language) and the German version of this film and wasn't convinced by either one of them. The film certainly has scenes that are simply hilarious but most of the film is rather lame. At least the music score is very good but the music always ends abruptly because of the editing. There are also a few scenes that are not logical and film also contains a very obvious (and therefore disturbing) continuity error. Jean Reno gives a decent performance and Christian Clavier turned out to be a very talented comedy actor. The film is good for a few laughs but fails to be amusing as a whole.

My rating: 4/10


I didn't get this movie, even after the end. This movie is about a lady that lives with her rich father and hates him because of the way he treats her and the fact that he doesn't understand her. She then is kidnapped by two lovers and a Japanese man that listen in on her conversations and look through her window. Why they kidnapped her I have no idea except for the fact that her father is rich. She is tortured and soon becomes brainwashed into believeing the fact that her father does not care if she is missing even after viewing news coverage about him looking for her and offering a reward for her return. As time passes, the lady cares less and less of her chances of returning home and desides to stay and live with the kidnappers and falls in love with the Japanese man. they teach her how to rob banks and kill. This part becomes corney to the sight of seeing her from being rich to robbing banks. Eventually the police come looking for them and she is then caught and put into prison for two years. Her father tries to frre her and takes her back home but she still does not love him. I will not reviel the ending but it leaves you with a "oh, thats it". sence of feeling. This movie is boring, dull and slow.


Basically,this is a variation on the Patty Hearst story set in England.It even opens with a shot of a castle where the rich girl lives with her rich father.After around 20 minutes,the rich girl gets kidnapped by three bizarros in strange costumes,and is subjected to all kinds of mental and sexual torture in order to brainwash her.There's also an operatic score to liven things up.In my opinion,this is one of the stupidest movies Oliver Reed ever made.


I can remember a time long ago when MTV actually played videos. For you kids who watch MTV now you probably think MTV never did. Well, they did but before you were born. In any case this Real World show is just one of many BS crap programs that MTV is replacing their music videos with. The kids that have been on every Real World show have no idea what the real real world is. For if they did they would not be on this program. The producers put these spoiled kids up in million dollar homes or whatever, pay for trips to other countries and give them all kinds of things to do. All they have to do is complain, fight and be offended by things that are not politically correct. The line up for the real World cast is normally this: Black guy, black girl, white feminist girl with hang-ups, macho jerk white guy, wimpy white guy and of course a homosexual. They all have to be people that get easily offended and act like total boneheads.

I can see this being called the real world if they placed these dumb kids in the projects in Chciago or some of the poorest, dirtiest places on the planet. That would be fun to watch these hand-held kids deal with that. MTV has no idea what the real world is because they are so lost in their PC world of transparent nonsense.


That's pretty much it, yuck!!!What kind of crap does MTV come up with?Sure, there's your every now and then GREAT show on MTV, but usually there's dumb excuses for entertainment like The Real World aired.

Okay, this show is "SUPPOSED" to be about a group of strangers who are brought together in a house for some period of time.(Wow, it sounds entertaining already doesn't it?)

This show should've been named-The we will set you up in this house and give you a certain amount of money for everything you do that we tell to World.

I mean, this show is "TOTALLY" unbelievable and complete sh*t compared to other decent "ENTERTAINMENT" shows on television.

You're probably thinking,"Oh well, it's unbelievable, but it's still great fun to watch, right?".....WRONG!!!!!!

I would rather shoot myself in the head than watch another episode of The "REAL" World, because watching this show is actually more painful than that.


The Real world is no doubt the most overrated TV show in television history, to say it's better than classics like sanford and son, all in the family, the dick van dyke show and the jeffersons is a joke, those who think of it, must be on some kind of acid trip, The Real world basicially made generation x go stale and teens bore to death, to compare this one to trauma life in the er is like comparing a alvin and the chipmunks to the smurfs trauma is about real life situations, while the real world is about stupidity eric nies is the most cheesist actor ever and the rest are terrible The real world along with many talk shows are the beginning of the downfall of TV in America. I'll be finally glad this show ends it's run for good. 1 Star.


This short freebie movie is terrible. It is meant to induce seizures. Instead of releasing good movies available for instant streaming, Amazon.com is making preachy "original" films that just make me want to vomit. Movies shouldn't be a headache inducing experience. This one in particular is bad because it is an endless cycle of quick edits of a hellish experience. This movie is 100% devoid of entertainment value and is annoying as hell to boot.

If you want the message of the movie it is "life is a hellish cycle of rushing from one appointment to the next so be sure to stop and talk to the crazy homeless people". Maybe Amazon should go back to the drawing board on offering free movies to visitors.


There are amateur films, And films that look amateur.

This looked amateur. Discontinuities cluttered the film. And any repeated actions in the film were achieved by playing back old footage. I actually thought I had a bad download. The first probably three minutes of the film is repeated frame for frame a little more than half way through.

Then latter in the ending sequence they keep repeating the exact footage not in flash back but because the director was simply too lazy shoot different actions in different ways. I was thoroughly impressed by how bad this was.


Repetition is fine in theory, but this turkey should have been edited. We get the point already. To just drag us through it over and over without shortening the process is just plain pretentious. Where was the editor on this? And for what? Smell the roses?????? The assumption here is that the character is rushing because someone is in danger. Him? A loved one? We don't know. And that's okay. But to set that up and then say -- "hey, we all need to slow down sometimes and smell the roses" is just plain bunk (not to mention cliché sentimental crap).

I'm exhausted watching this. And it was only a few minutes long.

PASS. and PASS. and PASS. and PASS. and PASS.


"Triple Cross" is one of the movies Terence Young wished he'd never done, and it is bad indeed, even though it had all the ingredients a good box office hit needs: an international all-star cast (Christopher Plummer, Romy Schneider, Yul Brynner, Trevor Howard, Gert Fröbe, Jess Hahn, Claudine Auger from "Thunderball", Howard Vernon and Bernard Fresson), a massive budget, a director at the height of his international fame, a Bond-like story, a Bond-like score (Georges Garvarentz) and Bond-like locations (Jersey, London, Paris, Lisbon, Southern France). What went wrong?

Basically, "Triple Cross" is about one hour too long (there are two versions available, one lasts 145 minutes, the other one 126), and for many parts it seems as if even the director got confused with the different story lines, so the movie is guilty of both, boredom and confusion. The romantic aspect of the film doesn't work out; the chemistry between Plummer and Schneider is everything but right. Christopher Plummer is a huge disappointment in his attempt to be Sean Connery. He is undoubtedly a good actor, but as Eddie Chapman, he remains pale and utterly deadpan. Where Connery as Bond had a lot of sex-appeal and charm, Plummer has nothing to offer. Miss Schneider is equally miscast as the mysterious Countess, she seems lost and bored and gives one of the very few bad performances of her life.

I won't give a summary of the plot here, it's just not worth it. I recommend watching the early Bond movies, like "Dr. No", "Goldfinger", or "From Russia With Love" instead.


I wanted to see what was out there for Lovecraft stuff to get in the mood for Halloween and came up with this movie. An absolutely stupid choice of lead actor combined with a really bad script makes the whole thing kind of "Killer Tomatoes" cool.

This kind of thing happens in the story: They go into some underground tunnels beneath a graveyard with no plan, no guns, no secret charm, just Don Knotts and Mr. French going to see if the monster that killed 4 people last night is still there. They find this crazed demon-infested girl and reach near it's hugely-fanged face to pull out a hair to study. Just one dumb idea after another.

My favorite part? Check out the sound it makes when the deputies are shooting the lock at the end.

I didn't see the first movie, but I don't think I needed it to review this.


See, that's exactly what happens when you're being mild and give favorable reviews to insignificant 80's horror movies like the original "The Unnamable". They make another one! The first one really wasn't too bad, and even occasionally entertaining, but seriously nobody needed a sequel. And this time, writer/director Jean-Paul Ouellette even had a slightly larger budget at his disposal, meaning the script is a lot more ambitious and there even was some money left to pay famous B-movie stars like John Rhys-Davies and the minuscule cameo appearance of David Warner. Even though part two came out five years after the original, we're supposed to not notice that the actors look a lot older and wear their hair in completely different styles. "The Unnamable Returns" carries on where the first film stopped, with Howard and Randolph escaping from the cursed Winthrop house. Notwithstanding the fact they quietly walked away unharmed at the end of the first film, they're now being taken away in ambulances and under massive police supervision. Randolph Carter, the self-proclaimed expert in demonology, returns to the catacombs underneath the house to investigate the origin of the half-woman-half-demonic-creature along with his university professor John Rhys-Davies. When they find it, they do what every rational scientist would do and inject the creature with insulin to separate the woman from the demon. Apparently it works, as the demon assumes something's wrong with the body and exits, leaving only the beautiful host Alyda. Randolph takes the 200-year-old naked beauty back to the dormitory, but the hideous winged demon creature follows their path. The original "The Unnamable" was perhaps a dumb and unmemorable film, at least it was entertaining. Part two is quite boring, pretentious and outstays its welcome with a running time of nearly 105 minutes. The script is full of incomprehensible gibberish about quantum physics and I sincerely doubt that any of the actors understood the lines they were speaking. The gore is minimal but it nevertheless is an unpleasant movie to look at because far too many innocent people die. Innocent bystanders, supportive characters that have done absolutely nothing to deserve to die and people that only wanted to help are being demolished by the creature's claws, whilst the dim-witted main characters get away with everything. That's just not right, not even if you exclusively watch horror films to see gore.


I love David Hasselhof. When i sit at home at night watching his movies over and over again stroking the posters on my wall with every available part of my body, I can't help wondering how he repeatedly manages to associate himself with such energetic and creatively original scripts. I couldn't see the ending of this one coming at all! It definitely did NOT make me want to physically injure myself just so i could experience something worse than the sickly sweet clichéd banality manifesting itself on screen!! I can sleep better at night knowing that if it weren't for the Hoff, modern cinema as we know it would be choking on its own creative vomit.


Not sure why this movie seems to have gotten such rave reviews.

While watching "Bang" one night on TV, I found myself bored by the nonsensical, random plot which was occurring on screen. The entire movie seems to be nothing more than an exercise in meaningless, artsy-fartsy self-indulgence on the part of the filmmaker. The fact that the director/writer goes by a one name moniker only reinforces this sense of pretentiousness.

Those interested in indie flicks would be better off looking for something better written and dare I say, more entertaining than this complete waste of time.


If the principal characters had had different names and each episode a credit such as "using ideas from a novel by Ngaio Marsh," I would have given it a much higher rating. It would have at least been bearable rather than a travesty. I rented the set with great hopes despite the box-art picture of a gent who looked almost completely unlike my mental picture of Roderick Alleyn, and then only with difficulty sat through two episodes.

Where to begin? Patrick Malahide hadn't quite the looks for the role of Alleyn, but certainly could have pulled it off given a script that captured the character's essence. Belinda Lang: same problem: Troy is supposed to be almost absurdly beautiful but careless about her appearance, but with the right scripts and makeup crew I'm sure that Lang could have managed quite well. William Simons looked just right for Inspector Fox, but again... these three vital characters are simply not the ones in the books.

Alleyn is supposed to be "faun-like" and remind people of a Spanish grandee turned monk "but with some interesting memories." Everyone first meeting him thinks he's an aristocrat, not a policeman (he is both), if they don't know better (or see that Inspector Fox is with him). He's prodigiously learned but wears his learning lightly, passionately fond of the theater; he's forever making jokes that would be above the heads of a television audience. People instinctively trust him and want to confide in him.

I saw none of this: did any of it manifest in later shows? I could go on in a similar vein about Troy and Mr. Fox, and indeed on and on... but unless the TV versions rapidly evolved into the characters I have known and loved for a decade, they are not anyone I know, nor particularly would want to know.

(Were all the shows set in the Fifties? That's the impression I got, and although that may have been necessary to make the production affordable, it wrenches the stories out of their proper places. The novels seem especially tied to their settings in time and space, and severing them from those removes a good part of their charm.)

If you've read and enjoyed any of the books, don't even contemplate watching any of these. You don't deserve such suffering.


I really hated this movie. The acting was so bad, the actors weren't "in" the story, do you know what i mean ??.

And the plot, well after ten minutes anyone can see how the movie is going to end.


Just hated this movie, I'm not sure why I watched til the end, probably because my 12 year old wanted to. I thought the little girls acting was just horrible. Like when crying about a Christmas tree and then the cop wannabe STEALS one! The guy treats the pair (lady and daughter) like stealing wallets is no big deal. I didn't see any chemistry between Mark and Mary. What store manager is going to let some security guard take them home to babysit them? Just so crazy and we really like watching Christmas movies. Surviving Christmas was a good one. As for the movie again, he quits his job, doesn't have another but wants to make it as a singer, just a totally stupid movie.