The opening credits sequence in this middling, moderately entertaining thriller were so fucking annoying in their aping of the classic Kevin Spacey-free Seven (1995) titles that I almost turned it off out of disgust.
It ends up being okay, if as predictable as it gets. It does take on a certain contentiousness with its theme of domestic terrorism and anti-government radicalism.
Worth a bash, even if Jeff Bridges is rubbish. He’s always rubbish.
How to describe Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) to someone yet to have ‘the experience’ – it’s nuts.
Kevin Costner is in it with a receding hairline/mullet combo. He leads a gang of Midlands-based Bolsheviks with American accents who spend their time chilling in Sherwood Forest and robbing successful people of their hard-earned cash – it’s an unintentional allegory.
Morgan Freeman is also in it, and he seems to have adopted an accent that’s straight outta Cool Runnings (1994). The best bit of the yarn is when they get from Dover to Nottingham, Alan Rickman’s domain, via Hadrian’s Wall.
It’s an insane movie and looks like it was made merely to test whether an insane movie could be a success.
After a grand opening sequence shot that showcases all of Brian De Palma’s predilection/fetish for needless aesthetics with an absence of characterisation or an acknowledgement of any world outside his own wee wanky technical exercises, this descends into a non-movie student project.
Apologies for the length of that sentence.
The most intriguing aspect of this legit pile of crap is that the excellent character actor Kevin Dunn is in it and interacts with a character named ‘Kevin Dunne’ played by Gary Sinise. But once again this is De Palma being all clever and self-referential instead of crafting a story.
Avoid.
I watched this in its entirety to marvel at the stupidity on display.
You don’t believe a thing in it, every line a concoction, every utterance a glib metaphor. The worst – the wee friends they have, these quirky one-dimensional supportive sock puppets who supply witty quips to the leads, just to remind the audience that this stock couple are popular.
Their pals exist merely for them, to boost their egos, to provide uncanny psychological insight. Personally, I’d rather be pals with a squirrel than any of the unbearable cunts mugging it in this sickly romcom, the most abysmal of its ilk.
0/5.
I’ve not seen it and most likely never will.
Are there awards for posters, though?
This should just be the Tom Cruise Show, 90 mins of him unravelling during an interview – think of Magnolia (1999) when his cocksure ‘Master of the Muffin’ gets exposed as a secret caregiver with feelings.
An ambitious fail, the two other stories in Lions don’t coalesce with this gripping centre.
A shame.
John Carpenter – and what happened to him? – is almost a student filmmaker with a broad canvas. He makes, or made as he’s seemingly retired from the director’s chair, entirely self-contained movies that are immediately identifiable in their style, and it goes without saying but I’ll say it, anyway – the music. He defines the B-movie and I could never imagine him making anything outside the parameters of the genre.
This is a good one. The social commentary and allegorical play on industrial decline isn’t exactly subtle, but it doesn’t matter. Piper’s sunglasses revealing pernicious subliminal content disseminated by the powers that be – I was almost expecting a Marshall McLuhan cameo, à la Annie Hall (1977).
Top movie. Daft, but with chuckles.
I mean, just look at Laurence Olivier.
What were they thinking? What was he thinking? Were they thinking?
I lasted 14 minutes.
This one has three narrative strands that go absolutely nowhere and by the one-hour mark the movie just descends into a parody of its own genre. I don’t even know what the title is referring to.
It’s crap but I liked it. There is good crap and bad crap. This is good crap. Maybe it’s the Michael Wincott voice.
Probably that.
How to describe this truly spellbinding picture without reeling off every platitude there is?
It’s a movie that is entirely relatable and in the ‘real world’, yet is so divorced from conventional narrative it may as well be non-cinema.
It’s a new kind of artform.
Is that cliché enough?
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 