TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
PROBLEM: synopsis : two con artists find the perfect patsy in harry ( woody harrelson ) - - an inept former journalist who trips and bumps his head into a post , tries to slap a girl and gets poked in the eye , has ill - timed fits of coughing , and fails at everything he does .
the story is told from harry 's point of view .
harry always carries around a shot of whiskey although he swears he does n't drink .
one day harry is approached by the con girl rhea ( elisabeth shue ) , who is similar to harry in that she carries around a cigarette but swears she does n't smoke .
seduced , harry agrees to participate in a money - making scheme involving faking the kidnapping of odette ( chloe sevigny ) , the teenage daughter of a rich man .
turns out , it 's all part of a needless , very puzzling , extremely elaborate and convoluted scheme
( it involves hiring special impersonators ) by two cons in order to fool harry , a hero who barely has the intellectual capacity of a wooden post .
when the ' kidnapped ' odette is found dead , the clues point to harry as the kidnapper / murderer , and the police are hot on harry 's trail .
harry suddenly realizes he has been framed while others have taken the ransom money .
can he get out of this mess ?
opinion : palmetto is a long , uninteresting film with all the wrong feel .
hero harry is an inept bungler who trips up often and consistently overestimates his own intelligence .
this farcical kind of character works best in an entertaining naked gun action comedy or dragnet spoof .
but palmetto is played like a dark , serious , detective noir drama , and watching harry 's bumbling confidence amounts to an irritating distraction .
there 's a lapse in concentration in the middle of the movie as the camera goes wild on breasts , buttocks , short skirts , colored painted nails , and women 's legs .
even when the focus is supposedly on harry and his dilema , you can always notice the side of elizabeth shue 's breast forming a prominent foreground .
towards the end , palmetto re - focuses on plot for the grand finale - - a confusing explanation involving impersonators , with woody harrelson handcuffed and suspended over a tub of acid as he hears the criminals ' confession . if you can imagine ' shemp ' from the three stooges playing the detective hero of an hbo ' lingerie suspense ' thriller , that 's how out of synch this movie feels .

SOLUTION: N

PROBLEM: so much for sweet returns .
after smart horror films were starting to be made again after the exploitative 80 's slasher movies , starting with 1996 's " scream , " and followed by " scream 2 , " " urban legend , " and the original , " i know what you did last summer , " a film like , " i still know what you did last summer , " was bound to be made sooner or late .
it is a perfect example of the exact reason why horror films temporarily burned out , and that is because they reached for the lowest - common - denominator in filmmaking , favoring non - stop deaths and gore for suspense , and trading in fleshed out , likable characters for one - dimensional nitwits .
it has been exactly one year since julie james ( jennifer love hewitt ) suffered through the ordeal of being terrorized by ben willis , a psychopathic fisherman whom her friends and she accidentally hit in the middle of the road , and then , thinking he was dead , dumped him into the ocean .
since then , julie has relocated to boston university , and although often paranoid and haunted by bad dreams , she has been able to put her life back together .
when julie 's friend , karla ( brandy ) , is called up by a radio station and answers correctly what the capital of brazil is , she wins a vacation to the bahamas for four people , which also includes karla 's horny boyfriend , tyrell ( mekhi phifer ) , and will ( matthew settle ) , who karla sets julie up with after her own boyfriend , ray ( freddie prinze jr . , also returning from the original ) , does n't show up .
when they reach the secluded island , they discover it is the last day of the open season , and will be stranded there for the 4th of july weekend with a few employees to fend off a violent storm headed for them .
of course , julie , her friends , and the workers are n't the only ones there , as the murderous ben willis , dressed in fisherman garb , returns to seek revenge on julie once and for all .
it is a sad state of affairs when a movie like , " i still know what you did last summer , " is made .
i am a very big fan of horror movies , and so it is especially disheartening to find out that this sequel to " ikwydls , " which i am a fan of , is almost an exact replica of a " friday the 13th " movie .
while the original focused more on the story and characters , as well as genuinely suspenseful moments , thanks to the screenplay by kevin williamson ( who did n't return to write the sequel , and it shows ) , " i still know . . .
" has no story to speak of , and is so vacuous of ideas , that the filmmakers , were forced to have a murder occur every five minutes just to keep the audience interested . also gone are any signs of character development , and since every single character died before i got to know them , all i was left with was to stare at the screen , indifferent to what was going on .
while i cared about the fates of the characters in the original , it made no difference to me in this sequel who lived and died .
they were all paper - thin and pointless , except to become victims to the lethal hook of the fisherman .
another element that made the original so memorable were some superbly crafted set - pieces , like the store sequence with sarah michelle gellar , but there are none to speak of in this sequel ( although they do come close at one moment with brandy ) .
since so many people were killed every couple minutes , the suspense and scares evaporated faster than salt in water .
also of note is the mystery of the second killer , and accomplice to ben , but it is obvious from the first frame who it is , and so i could n't even have fun at that , like i did in the " scream " movies and , " urban legend .
"
it figures that just as slasher films were starting to get some recognition again , a film would come along and ruin it for everyone else .
maybe the people who made , " i still know what you did last summer , " should have realized that in order to make a good movie , you must have a screenplay --- or at least one that is n't such a black hole for thoughts and ideas .
the ending of the film inevitably leaves the door wide open for a third part , but judging from this amazingly lackluster first sequel , everyone involved should have quit while they were still ahead .

SOLUTION: N

PROBLEM: dear god , this is a fantastically bad film !
regardless of what i say about knock off , you ca n't grasp its awfulness from my words .
you have to see it and experience it for yourself .
here 's the kicker , though -- i suggest that you do so .
yes , this is a bad film -- easily one of the most incompetent films of the year --
but it has a certain misguided charm that makes it a unique kind of disaster to endure
.
in fact , i enjoyed myself for most of its brief running time , despite the dreadful acting and a completely incomprehensible story
.
do n't get me wrong : i 'm not excusing knock off .
it reaches an unacceptable level of badness ; it 's so incoherent that i wonder if it was hacked up worse than the avengers was .
it also features some truly terrible performances from lela rochon , michael wong , paul sorvino , and -- of course -- jean - claude van damme .
it does , however , have the entertaining presence of rob schneider , and the excessively inventive and pretentious direction of tsui hark .
as i watched it , i occasionally wondered if it was aware of its own awfulness .
now , in retrospect , it seems clear that it was n't , but it 's still a fascinating kind of mess .
i do n't like writing plot descriptions ( it is , by far , the most boring part of writing a review ) , but , in this case , i 'm off the hook : there is no way i could write an accurate synopsis for knock off .
for the sake of comparison , i had no trouble understanding the usual suspects during my first viewing .
i paid closer attention to knock off , and the only thing i am able to say about it is that van damme plays a dude named ray , and is accused by the cia ( i think ) of selling
knock off products ( knock off products are , of course , products that look like name - brand materials but are generic and cheap ) .
i do n't know what any of this has to do with martial arts , but there are lots of martial arts in the film .
ray is good at martial arts , so when he has to beat up bad guys , there 's no problem .
rob schneider plays his sidekick , although i had no idea who he really was by the end of the film .
lela rochon is just some woman who accuses them of stuff , while paul sorvino is both the good guy and the bad guy at once !
in fact , every character goes through so many shifts from good to bad that the end provides absolutely no insight into what any of them really do .
in that order , knock off is completely incoherent and makes absolutely no sense .
but what a strange mess
it is .
it was written by stephen e .
de souza , who also wrote die hard and 48 hours .
can this be the same man ?
i do n't see how , unless , of course , huge chunks of the film have been removed for the sake of running time .
knock off seems to have an interesting premise ( as far as action films go ) , but there 's no semblance here .
for instance , van damme is introduced , and then seconds later he 's running a chariot race through the streets of hong kong .
why ?
who knows .
what are the implications of this ?
i have no idea .
most action films abandon depth in favor of action , and this is normally a problem .
knock off , however , is the first film that i would have preferred to see with all of the talky sequences cut .
the acting is embarrassingly bad :
rochon , in particular , delivers each of her lines with stiff and talentless insincerity .
sorvino , in addition , deserves better than this .
van damme is bad , but he 's charming in that bad way , and so i ca n't say that he 's hard to watch ( although i rarely understood what he was saying ) .
the only exception is rob schneider , who is actually quite funny a lot of the time .
tsui utilizes so many tricks that he makes john woo look tame by comparison .
they 're all pointless gimmicks
though , such as shots of the inner - workings of a knock off running shoe .
but his action scenes are never boring :
one particular piece inside of a fruit factory ( a fruit factory ? ) is well - choreographed .
lots of the scenes are pitched well to comedy , such as our heroes ' first encounter with the rochon character .
but did tsui know that his film is beyond ludicrous
?
i hope he did , for the alternative is a frightening thought .
knock off has the feel of a truly terrible exercise in camp mania .
if it were boring , i 'd give it zero stars .
but it 's not boring :
it 's loud and excessive and completely incoherent .
it 's also funny , even when it is n't meaning to be funny .
a bad film that succeeds as entertainment does n't deserve to be fully lambasted .
i recognize knock off for its irrefutable badness , but i ca n't deny it 's zany , useless charm .
oh , i know , they 're just action scenes looking desperately for a real story , but they 're fun action scenes amongst a crowd of laughably inane concepts .
it 's fun to admire
the awfulness of a film like this , but that does n't excuse the fact that it is , indeed , awful .

SOLUTION:
N