TASK DEFINITION: In this task, you must classify if a given review is positive/negative, indicating your answer as P or N.
PROBLEM: in the line of duty is the critically praised series of television movies dealing with the real - life incidents that claimed lives of law enforcement officers in usa .
the twilight murders , another one from the series , is dealing with the case of gordon kahl ( played by rod steiger ) , old farmer from north dakota who would rather spend a year in prison than pay taxes to the despised u .
s .
government .
after being released , he still refuses to pay taxes and the warrant is issued for his arrest .
when the u . s .
marshals come to arrest him , it turns out that kahl is n't alone .
many poor farmers in rural northwest share his extremist anti - government beliefs , and the routine operation turns into shootout that would leave federal officers that .
that brings fbi on the scene , and agent mayberly ( michael gross ) is supervising the manhunt .
however , his efforts seem fruitless , since kahl still has many supporters , some of them even in the local law enforcement .
after betrayed , 1988 thriller by costa gavras , hollywood mostly ignored the disturbing trends of rising right - wing extremism in the american northwest , and that remained so until oklahoma city bombing , when media hype brought right - wingers back into spotlight .
until that time , only the television movies like this one bothered to pay attention to that phenomenon .
unfortunately , the twilight murders is still routine and formulaic television film , that uses sensationalist real life content in order to cover lack of originality in the script .
sometimes , like many american tv movies , it creates drama where drama should n't be
.
on the other hand , film is steadily directed by dick lowry , and rod steiger does good job potraying gordon kahl .
on the other hand , michael gross as his pursuer is quite wooden and his interaction with some of the actors is terrible .
however , film does deal with potentially thought - provoking social and political issues , so hour and half spent in front of the screen should n't be the total waste of time .

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

PROBLEM: depending on who you ask , the original sin was either the eating of the apple , the act of disobedience against god , or the act of betrayal .
but in case you did n't know this , do n't bother remembering it . . .
the words " original sin " never come up in the movie of the same name , let alone the concept of it .
the closest the film even gets to catholicism is in its narrative ( the story is told by angelina jolie to her priest while on death row in cuba , circa 1900 ) .
regardless of its senseless title , original sin does actually have a plot ( albeit
one of the most mangled acts of screenwriting
since the art of war , based on the book waltz across darkness ) .
boy ( antionio banderas ) places personal ad sometime around 1900 , searching for a wife .
since this is a century ago , we narrowly dodge a remake of green card , only to find that the girl ( jolie ) faked her photo and is actually beautiful .
skipping a few moderately useless sex scenes ( getting the question out of the way , yes , we get to see angelina jolie 's breasts again ) , the girl turns out to be a con artist , swindles boy for his money , and heads for the hills .
original sin then briefly tries to be a thriller .
we see boy go whore - chasing , saying he wants to find girl and kill her .
but as soon as boy actually finds girl , instead of following what might have been
a promising ( or at least not completely fucking boring ) thriller , the film degenerates into the worst dissection of the virgin / whore complex since milk money .
girl toys with the idea of reforming her con - girl past , all the while avoiding the " other man , " a lover that keeps making her start these scams in the first place . add insult to injury with some of the worst stylistic choices in cinematic history ( literally half of the film is either in slow motion or uses a strobe effect ) , and acting roughly the caliber of a b . b . gun , and original sin is one of the most torturous films of the summer , definitely front running to make my bottom ten of the year .
do n't even bother with original sin , but if you do go , be honest with yourself and admit its pure sex appeal .
just keep in mind that although this film may not be the most original on the block , it 's much worse than a sin .
this is sacrilege .

SOLUTION:
N