BONE (3+ outta 5 stars) Very odd film that gets better and better the more times you see it. The plot sounds like an average thriller... but the movie is really a comedy... a very black, very subversive comedy. A well-to-do middle-aged couple (Andrew Duggan, Joyce Van Patten) have their bickering interrupted by a mysterious, threatening black man (Yaphet Kotto) who seems to come out of nowhere. He ransacks the house, looking for money. After coming up dry he sends the husband to the bank to withdraw some cash... if he doesn't come back in an hour he is going to rape the wife. Well, the husband takes the opportunity to run out on his wife and have a one night stand with a crazy woman he meets outside of the bank. The wife and her captor, in the meantime, actually begin to form a bond... and soon take off after the errant husband to seek their revenge. Or do they? Excellent performances and dialogue. I was a little taken aback by the movie the first time I saw it because I wasn't sure where it was going... so you'll need to keep an open mind to fully appreciate it. Why was Yaphet Kotto never a big movie star? He OWNS this movie! (Then again, he pretty well owns EVERY movie he appears in.) Classic opening dream sequence of Andrew Duggan selling used cars filled with gruesome accident victims!
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hokeybutt2 April 2005
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The_Void19 November 2006Larry Cohen would become famous for schlock horror and thrillers, but his directorial debut was this absurd little black comedy. The basic plot is a lot like the one that features in any number of exploitation films, although the consequences are handled differently. It would seem that Cohen was tying to make some points on race and culture classes; but that side of the film doesn't come across particularly well, and it's better to enjoy Bone for what it is. The comedy was never going to appeal to a mainstream audience because its pitch black and at times, it's difficult to tell if the film is actually meant to be funny. The plot focuses on Beverley Hill's couple Bill, a used car salesman, and his wife Bernadette. Their lives are thrown into turmoil one day when a black man named Bone breaks into their house and demands money. However, all is not rosy for him either - as it soon transpires that despite having the biggest house in the neighbourhood, Bill and Bernadette aren't well off at all, and their marriage doesn't seem to be as happy as first assumed.
This film stands out from a lot of other seventies stuff simply because it is so bizarre, and because of the odd way in which the plot plays out. Cohen sets up the film so that it's not always obvious where he's going to take it, and while there aren't a great deal of surprises with the plot; it at least isn't predictable. The acting is of a rather high standard considering that the film is very much a B-movie. Granted, none of the cast deserves an award for their performances; but all fit into their respective roles well, and none of the performances are particularly over the top. Larry Cohen would go on to prove himself as a more than capable director in the years after this film was released, with films the likes of The Stuff, It's Alive and The Ambulance; but even here, on his directorial debut, Cohen still manages to direct his film with style and panache, which elevates above the level of most similar films. Overall, despite not being as trashy as his later films; Bone is still well worth tracking down for the Larry Cohen fan, and gets a definite thumbs up from me! -
Bennyfofennie31 October 2008I first saw Bone aka Housewife back in high school (over ten years ago) after a friend dubbed for me his VHS copy. It was a scratchy print, yet it didn't stop me from being mesmerized by this film. The movie stars Andrew Duggan and Joyce Van Patten as Bill and Bernadette a down on their luck Beverly Hills couple that one day find a rat in their pool. As usual, they have no luck getting a hold of pest control but guess who shows up instead? None other than Bone, played by Yaphet Kotto, a psychotic, intimidating, yet lovable black man with paint stains on his shirt. Bone kindly gets the rat out of the pool and then takes Bernadette hostage. Bill is sent on a mission to withdraw all the money from his account(s) or Bernadette gets it (in more ways than one). To give away anything more would be criminal. Watching the gorgeous new DVD of this was like falling in love all over again. Yet, I couldn't help but think there's no way in Hell a film like this could get made today. Here's why: a) It makes you sympathize with a potential rapist. b) A scene of a woman, Jeannie Berlin, talking about an incident of child molestation before hopping in to bed with Bill is one of the films most hilarious moments. c) Bone's character truly challenges so-called 'racial tolerance' amongst a liberal couple. There's no way you could get a masterpiece of agitation like this released by the P.C. Gestapo that currently runs Tinseltown. Owned! In my opinion this is Larry Cohen's best. God Told Me To comes in a close second. It shows what a truly visionary, subversive director he was before cranking out mediocre works like Phone Booth. What happened Mr.Cohen? Maybe Brain DePalma knows. Yaphet Kotto gives, as usual, a knockout performance. Mr.Kotto is an amazing, underrated actor whom I'd love to see get a starring role again. Oh wait, did I mention how cool the soundtrack is?
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planktonrules14 January 2017"I'm a big black buck just doin' what's expected of him!"
"Bone" is one of the stranger films of the 1970s and is one I am not 100% sure I liked...but at least it was original! It begins with a couple rich folks, Bill and Bernadette (Andrew Duggan and Joyce Van Patten) relaxing by the pool. Soon a black man, Bone (Yaphet Kotto), arrives and the couple assume he's an exterminator or handyman coming to clear the rat out of the pool. Instead, after taking care of the rat, he sticks around...and threatens to rob them and rape the missus unless her husband returns from the bank with a ransom. The husband goes to the bank but changes his mind and goes off on some very strange adventures with a lady screaming about x- rays as well as a bizarro woman who wants to replicate her rape as a child...with Bill! As for Bernadette, despite Bone acting all rapey, it soon becomes apparent he isn't going to rape her and she is disappointed. Yes, I know this is very politically incorrect and some feminists would be offended by this notion. Soon, she realizes her husband is NOT bringing back ransom money...and the story gets even weirder. The finale is strange....and not 100% satisfying.
This film was written, produced and directed by Larry Cohen--a guy known for blackspoitation films like "Hell Up in Harlem" and "Black Caesar" (both excellent movies, actually). I would NOT consider this blacksploitation at all...but it does bring up a lot of race issues and the white folks are nasty hypocrites like you might see in a blacksploitation flick. In fact, the film is more a commentary about the banality of the upper class and their lack of ethics, values and souls. A very weird film...and one that bears re- watching simply because it's hard to determine exactly what Cohen is trying to say!!
By the way, you might be surprised to see quite a bit of Joyce Van Patten in this film. Despite her image as a 'nice girl' in films and being the sister of Dick Van Patten, here she shows some nudity and the film definitely has some very adult themes. -
christophaskell10 September 2003Oh man, this film is good. Beautifully acted, the entire cast seemed to understand their place in the movie perfectly. Some very strong social observations are made within as well, making Cohen's script work on multiple levels. The way everything has a surreal feeling to it, it almost feels like a dream the whole way through. And where did Yaphet Kotto come from, and where did he go in the end? Very mysterious, but it all fits into the dream, possibly the dream of the son in Vietnam? I haven't been so excited about a comedy in awhile, this film needs to be seen. Rating: 35/40
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frankenbenz6 December 2008http://eattheblinds.blogspot.com
In the United States, race relations are and will remain a relevant issue for many years to come. The current Presidential Race has revealed that, despite the superficial progress this country has made, race relations haven't really improved all that much. Yes there's a black man on the brink of becoming the first black President, but considering it has taken almost 300 years for this country to even consider the black man to be a worthy candidate is, in itself, a reflection of how blacks in the US remain second class citizens politically, economically and socially. Today, blacks comprise 13 percent of the national population, but also 30 percent of people arrested, 41 percent of people in jail and 49 percent of those in prison. One in ten black men in their twenties and early thirties are in prison or jail. Thirteen percent of the black adult male population has lost the right to vote because of felony disenfranchisement laws. This is hardly the picture of equality.
Hollywood has had many kicks at the racial cat, but few have been as brazen as Larry Cohen's 1972 Bone. Cohen opens the film with a title card that declares "The year is 1970. The most powerful nation on earth wages war against one of the poorest countries -- which it finds impossible to defeat. And in this great and affluent nation exists its smallest richest city...And it is called Beverly Hills." With this opening Cohen defines the battlefield of a class war that spans the globe, one where the white ruling elite (aka The Establishment) is intent on keeping its vice grips tight on the throat of the poor. But to the eroding Establishment's chagrin, the poor -- oppressed, disenfranchised and pi$$ed off -- are fighting back. Cohen isn't subtle about getting his point across and this opening shot of a light bulb turning on then off sends a clear message to the audience: like it or not, you will be illuminated.
The characters within Cohen's story represent the ideological instead of the individual. Yaphet Kotto who stars as the titular character epitomizes white establishments greatest fear: black, big, strong, motivated, angry and smart. Bone represents the uprising, more specifically the black power movement, and, ultimately, the same poor people who the most powerful nation in the world cannot defeat: the Viet Cong. Bone's presence sets into motion a series of events that reveal things are not as cozy as they seem in white America: its broke (both financially and spiritually), its in denial and its in decline.
Andrew Duggan is Bill, a famous, rich, car dealership owner/car salesman, who is selling a failing American Dream. When Bone pulls the veil off of Bill, the Establishment is revealed as a bankrupt and immoral sham. Bill's only love is for paper and after Bone sends Bill on an errand to clean out his bank account or suffer the loss of his wife, Bill sides with his money despite a half-hearted attempt to maintain his carefully constructed and maintained public appearance.
Cohen recognizes the white elite are an obvious and easy target, and as quickly as Bill is emasculated, Cohen redirects his critique to the Uprising, showing that once the disenfranchised have a taste of wealth, they too lose sight of their ideals. Bill's wife Bernadette symbolizes the ignorance/innocence of the status quo and once Bone gains her respect/acceptance, he allows himself to be seduced by her. This slave/slave owner's wife seduction symbolizes a misdirected/idealized quest for power that is reduced to fu**ing the same force that has been fu**ing you your entire life. But this conquest results in selling out to the same system, thusly subsuming the Uprising through assimilation. In other words, once the Uprising buys into the system, the Uprising becomes the Establishment.
But Cohen doesn't stop there, in fact, he goes to great length to ensure that no one gets a free pass. The secondary characters within Bone also represent particular demographics, and they too are indicted with equal impunity. Bone's strength is that it chooses not to make a hero out of anyone or any cause and in doing so, it distributes the blame equally. We are the sum total of all our decisions and no matter how hard we fight to change things, all we're ever capable of doing is rearranging the chess pieces on the chess board.
Watching Bone today makes you realize that as much as times have changed, they remain exactly the same. That's not to say Bone isn't dated by specifics (wardrobe, production design, The Vietnam War, etc) - it definitely is a film that encapsulates its era - but what is striking is its depiction of an America bitterly divided (see above still for visual metaphor) by race, sex, class and ideology. Sound familiar? -
Punky Monkey19 August 2001An superb and breathtaking movie - purely character driven, unpredictable and mesmerising. Fabulous performances all round, an intriguing script, some good satire and excellent pacing throughout.
I'd recommend seeing it without any preconceptions - don't read any plot summaries, and don't be put off by any conclusions you may draw about the movie in the first 15 minutes...
This is an absolute gem! -
BandSAboutMovies18 March 2018The basic story of Bone is simple: a rich couple deals with a home invasion. But this movie has Larry Cohen at the helm, so it's going to be anything but basic. The man who is there to take them for everything soon learns that the couple is anything but rich. And they're anything but happy.
Bernadette (Joyce Van Patten, St. Elmo's Fire, Grown Ups) and Bill (Andrew Duggan, In Like Flint, It Lives Again) are a seemingly rich Beverly Hills couple. Bill's a used car salesman who feels that he's the only one working hard, symbolized by his wife refusing to even getting up to answer the phone while he cleans the pool. Then, a rat gets stuck in the drain. That's what brings Bone (Yaphet Kotto, Alien, Live and Let Die) into their lives.
Mistaking him for an exterminator, they ask him to pull the rat out. He does and instead of hiding it from them, he confronts them with it. He then takes them hostage as he goes through their home looking for money.
It turns out that the couple has little in liquid assets and is deeply in debt. Their son may be in Vietnam or he may be in jail. And it turns out Bill has a secret bank account that Bernadette knows nothing about. Bone commands him to clean out that account and bring him the money in an hour or he'll rape and kill his wife.
Bill ends up taking his time as he realizes how little he loves his wife. He drinks with a lady (Brett Sommers from TV's Match Game) that explains how her husband died from too many dental x-rays. Soon, he's been seduced by a young girl (Elaine May's daughter Jeannie Berlin, The Heartbreak Kid, Inherent Vice) who steals from the system, attracted to her offbeat ways and youthful spirit.
He comes home without the money. But meanwhile, after learning how to make eggs - she doesn't cook anymore - Bernadette and Bone have gotten drunk and ended up on the couch together. He explains to her how raping white women and the black mystique used to take him so far, but today, black and white love is commonplace. What started as him continually saying he was going to rape her has turned and she begins to seduce him, kissing him and "doing all the work." He talks about how black men have troubles now making love and she tells him that it's not just black men.
After they bond, Bernadette tries to convince Bone to help her murder Bill for his insurance. They ride the bus to the end of the line, then chase Bill to the beach. He tries to win them over with a used car pitch to keep him alive, Bernadette smothers and kills him. Bone realizes that he wants nothing to do with this life and leaves.
On Cohen's website, the characters in this film are broken down by how they relate to the world: Bill is The Establishment who may be open to change. Bernadette is liberation and feminism that has been held down. The X-Ray Lady is the real Establishment, the old guard ready to die off. The Girl is the hippy love generation already giving way to the darkness of the 70's. Then there's Bone - facing racism but willing to play with it to get what he wants, as he says, "I'm just a big bad buck, ready to do what's expected of him." He even talks about how he's held onto the past, enjoying his part of the world of racism because it was easier and there was a role. Now, in this new world, he doesn't know who to be.
The character work in this film is superb. Witness the scene where the girl explains to Bill how she was raped as a child and that's why she's attracted to old men like him. Even when he tries to connect with her by telling her about the Street & Smith pulps her bought as a kid, she still tries to connect him to the rapist who took her virginity as she begins to make love to him.
If I didn't say it yet, Yaphet Kotto is amazing in this movie. His performance is quite literally a tour de force. He's always great in everything he's in, but in this film, he's transcendent. I also love that he borrowed Cohen's red sweater for a scene late in the movie and never returned it.
Amazingly, this was Cohen's first film. It's assured and poised, straddling the line between art film and exploitation. -
Yours truly isn't a man of many traditions, but the few I have I try to keep intact fanatically. See at least one Christmas-themed horror movie during the holiday season, for instance, or never watch a horror movie remake before the original. Another tradition is to pay my final respect to great directors and actors/actresses by watching one of their films within a week of their passing. This brought me to "Bone", since the great and somehow always underrated Yaphet Kotto passed away on March 14th, 2021. Rest in peace, Mr. Kotto.
Actually, I'm glad I still hadn't seen my copy of "Bone", even though I own the DVD for at least 12-15 years already. In all the obvious classics Yaphet Kotto starred in throughout his career ("Alien", "Brubraker", "Live and Let Die" ...), he was a respectable supportive character, whereas "Bone" is one of his sole leading/title roles. Regardless of its quality and status, I'm somehow convinced that it always remained a very special and important milestone film in both the careers of Kotto, and of the genius writer/director Larry Cohen (who also passed away not that long ago, in March 2019).
Now, I certainly wouldn't go as far to refer to "Bone" as a brilliant classic that is mandatory viewing for all cult-loving audiences, but it's undeniably a strange and irresistibly absorbing mix between psychological thriller and absurd black comedy. Impossible combination, I hear you say? I would agree, but Larry Cohen nevertheless pulled it off and allegedly found his inspiration in the oeuvre of the controversial writer Joe Orton. Several parts are overlong, far too talkative and dreadfully uninteresting, for sure, like the sequences at the bar or at the supermarket. Other parts are downright fantastic and easily rank among the most hilarious scenes I have ever seen. Examples of these are the promo-video interludes of car salesman Bill, the attempt to call anonymously to the police from a phone booth, or even some of the lines spoken by Kotto ("Well, I was planning to rape you, but it seems like the two of you have enough problems already")
Yaphet Kotto is terrific as the reluctant rapist who invades the home of the seemingly happy & rich couple Bill and Bernadette in Beverly Hills. It's starts with Bone menacing the posh couple with a dead rat he just pulled out of their pool filter, but he accidentally exposes a bottomless pit of marital lies, forgery, treason and unhappiness. Andrew Duggan, Joyce Van Patten and Jeannie Berlin are really good as well, especially since they're depicting such unusual characters. -
wes-connors13 November 2014Middle-aged used-car salesman Andrew Duggan (as Bill Lennox) and his blonde, bikini-clad wife Joyce Van Patten (as Bernadette) lounge by the pool at their swanky Southern California estate. Their home and property look like the best in the area, but there are troubled waters ahead for the Beverly Hills couple. While swimming, Mr. Duggan discovers a rat in the pool's side skimmer. Both he and Ms. Van Patten are horrified. Unable to remove the creature, they call for help and are suddenly joined by aggressive, jive-talking Yaphet Kotto (as Bone). Although he gets rid of the rat, Mr. Kotto is really there to rob the couple and rape Van Patten...
Subversively subtitled "A Bad Day in Beverly Hills", this was the first feature film directed by TV writer-producer Larry Cohen. Usually responsible for populist entertainment, Mr. Cohen may have thought "Bone" had counter-culture appeal. It's a seldom funny "black comedy" that clearly understands the role played by Duggan while aiming poorly for some sort of parity of attention with Mr. Kotto's character. Not surprisingly, Duggan's character is the clearest drawn...
The "imaginary" opening minutes show Duggan peddling his trade in a yard of car wrecks, with bloody bodies still inside. This would have been more effective if intercut later, perhaps during the bank withdrawal scenes. Shown first as an attention getting device, the bloody opening takes away from the disarming introduction of the three main characters. A pre-"Heartbreak Kid" Jeannie Berlin has featured role and a pre-"Match Game" Brett Somers is seen briefly. "Bone" is generous with ugly close-ups and an annoying soundtrack. You do get a good look at old Los Angeles and 1970s smokers will identify with dropping a cigarette in the car while driving.
**** Bone (7/12/72) Larry Cohen ~ Yaphet Kotto, Andrew Duggan, Joyce Van Patten, Jeannie Berlin -
The film starts with a rat in a pool then a black man appears and it is the interaction between these three unpleasant characters what makes the film. The three are an unsuccessful car dealer his wife and a robber/rapist/murderer. The films improv style acting and unreal sequences serve to give an intensively unpleasant atmosphere as the characters are revealed and their lives decay. Cohen has produced an underground masterpiece and while it defies comparison there are similarities to Apocalypse Now or Crash. It is a crime that this film is not better known and this is probably only because the majority of viewers will hate it.
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Leofwine_draca2 August 2016Larry Cohen's directorial debut is an intriguing, psychologically arresting film which plays with the mind unlike any of his other works. While he later concentrated on monsters - and humour - in films such as THE STUFF and Q THE WINGED SERPENT, HOUSEWIFE is a film based on the complex lives and relationships of three main characters - the married couple and the rapist.
The interaction between the three is certainly intriguing and the gradual way in which the wife comes to love the rapist more than her husband is handled in a slow, deliberate manner. That said, there are still a number of horrific things taking place - a surreal, obscene phone call from non other than a policeman, a dead rat in a swimming pool, a car yard full of corpses.
The acting is generally good all round, from the torn husband who is seduced by a young girl, to the housewife, who ranges from scared to aggressive and even murderous. Yaphet Kotto is superb as a gentle rapist. The issue of race is explored (the film cashes in on the blaxploitation era) in a genuinely interesting way. The theme of sexual intrigue runs throughout the film and much is made of it, yet it is not handled in an awkward way. If you're looking for a weird, surreal story where tables are turned and outcomes are genuinely unexpected, then HOUSEWIFE is for you. -
mls418220 April 2021I watched this to see Mr. Yaphet Kotto. Although his performance is spectacular, the character is horrid stereotype. An ugly film with no real message other than the writer and director hated society.
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NORDIC-222 February 2000Larry Cohen's BONE (1972) is a strange but interesting little film from an era when it was actually okay to lambast the capitalist mucky-mucks. Bone (Yaphet Kotto) is a young black tough who wanders into Beverly Hills and menaces a bourgeois white couple played by Andrew Duggan and Joyce Van Patten. Duggan is a slimy car salesman and Van Patten plays his trophy wife. (They have a grown son, who is in a Spanish jail for trying to smuggle hashish.) The film is supposed to be a satire of white racism and male privilege--and it is, but it's uneven at best. The film is well acted but a stronger, more coherent script would have helped. (Bonus moment: there's a hilarious moment when a hippie girl deliberately puts down a banana peel in a grocery store and--you guessed it--a hapless clerk goes sailing into a display in one of the best pratfalls ever recorded on film.)
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jonahstewartvaughan20 January 2023Cult Cuts Volume 5
#3/4: Bone (1972)
(7/10):The first film directed by legendary Cult Director Larry Cohen is an odd one,granted many of his works have been odd but I especially find this one to feel a bit more different.
Bone is a crime oriented dark romantic comedy focused on a dark skinned man who does a bit of housework for a couple only for them to find out a bit about each other,they aren't who they say they are but neither is he.
What then plays out is Bone holding the so called wife hostage and forcing the husband to go out out and desperately dig up enough money to meet his demands within a given time period or he will rape her. However,ironically, they somehow bond over past trauma.
Yaphet Kotto is great as Bone and the film is scored very well but it's sense of humour is an aquired taste,if not more in line with its time,if not both.
It still made me laugh but just not at a consistent rate out out loud as it felt more shocking than funny.
It's also a film that gets grouped into the same category as Blaxploitation or Soul Cinema,most of the time but I believe I saw people say that this one is just misinterpreted as being so,however it isn't without its traits.
It's a good movie,offensive and somewhat dated,but it's got enough rustic charm that could keep one engaged. -
Quinoa198429 March 2018To say it couldn't have been made today is an understatement. It's a bold film for any time, and it's incredible pissed off. If you wanted to see white men taken down a peg or two, this takes them down to uh... Hell. It's not scathing. It's scalding. And as a film, moving across just several hours of time in one afternoon, it has amazing energy and you can tell Cohen is having... A blast making this! This is significant because if Bone had been more like a sermon, if it had even tried to play everything super serious and straight, it wouldn't have the same impact.
I should be surprised it was made at all... Cohen had a mountain full of tenacity. It's all over the place in some ways - at a certain point this felt a bit like Cassavetes's Faces but with Yaphet Kotto in the Seymour Cassel part...and for the whole movie. But its also a thriller... Sorta. Its something that feels so wholly original I can't quite compare it to anything else. It's not sleazy enough for the usual exploitation of the period, and it's too wild and packed with insane digressions for a studio. Bone is an unkenpt beast of a satire, made as a first feature (though Cohen had worked in TV for years), and clearly he had a lot on his mind... A lot.
Cohen takes on race, sex, class and even policing and how to make your pool cleaner and... it makes for something special. I dont know if it all *works*, but I feel like I've experienced something daring and need a little more time to put the pieces together. By the last act it isnt so much funny as it is totally fascinating - perhaps if Kafka remade Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?
And Yaphett Kotto... Whoa - one of his major performznces. Good jazz/r&B score and songs, too. -
vonnoosh10 November 2022Social commentary today in entertainment is an insult to the audience. There is no art behind the way the messaging comes across. Now you will see literal lectures on the screen and be bored out of your mind until you change the channel. Ths movie is the opposite to that approach.
The point of the movie is the final scene where the couple's conflict reaches its conclusion. I for one think the woman is insane the entire film and Joyce Van Pattan is great at playing characters who are somewhat off. Also, the film gets a little hallucinatory which adds to how the story takes place. Alot of it is like a deranged dream.
The resson I watched this is Yaphet Kotto who is great in anything he did. He isn't the straight man in a comedy (like Midnight Run) he is simply part of it. The role is such a change of pace from what he would be later known for (personally that's the movie I mentioned and 7 seasons of H:LOTS) that this is a real treat to watch.
Also it is entertaining as an offbeat black comedy. So few in comedy understood how to manage creating dark humor, but Larry Cohen wasn't one of them. There is just enough humor to lighten the seriousness of the content. I think I would show this movie to a class to so they can see how it is done right.
This is a 70s movie of course so the pacing is a bit slow, that can take a little getting used to but it's worth it. -
Jerry-Kurjian9 April 2006In my opinion, this film was before its time by about 5 years. If only it had been made in 1977, I wouldn't have bothered renting it and would have saved myself $3 and 90 minutes of tedious American culture bashing. 'Bone' attempts to be a vehicle for social commentary. White, upper-middle class people who have settled in Southern California from the east coast have become bored and shallow; their lives are as empty as their joint bank account. *yawn* An African American comes along to shake them out of their lethargy. Racial tensions, sex, and murder ensue. If the plot strikes you as cliché, superficial, or boring, then you're with me.
None of the characters is likable really. This is what happens when a director is determined to exploit rather than explore people. On top of it all, Bone, the interloper-rapist-lover main character, turns out to be a figment of . . . two people's imaginations? Reality not very apparently becomes fantasy at some point in the movie you get to decide where and then reasserts itself, I guess, at the end when murder is committed, although how, since it's been fantasy so far, is unclear. But when a director plays the exploitation/fantasy card, rationality goes out the window. Some folks might find this disclarity entertaining. Me, I think it's cheap. -
I_Ailurophile29 August 2021The movie is very direct, introducing all the main characters within only ten minutes and setting off the conflicts at hand. Each of these characters bear strong, forceful personalities, and are all quite dubious and unlikable in their own ways. Yaphet Kotto's titular character, a common criminal, is arguably the least of them, as we quickly learn of Bill's (Andrew Duggan) own underhanded duplicity, and Bernadette (Joyce Van Patten) is shrill and demanding. This is a crime film, and a dark comedy, but it's a pitch black and pointedly dry flavor of comedy far ahead of its time.
The construction of the film is notably jarring, with scenes or even singular shots of shocking, disparate imagery interspersed throughout at particular times. At its most vivid Gil Melle's score is discordant and sharp, while the sound mix seems orchestrated to exaggerate every slight noise and high-pitched tone of voice. Scenes of violence, cruelty, and lawlessness are juxtaposed with incongruously heartfelt, probing dialogue, building the acrid sense of humor. This is to say nothing of the surprising, blunt ways 'Bone' explores themes of race, marital strife, sexual gratification, and gender, and other upended expectations that further lend to the comedy.
Kotto, Duggan, and Van Patten are all outstanding, realizing their characters with brilliant sardonic jocularity. Much credit as well to the supporting cast, including prominent Jeannie Berlin and Brett Somers. Everyone involved gives astounding liveliness to roles that seem at once too ridiculous to be real and too real to be fictional, and there's sly nuance to the performances that's gratifying.
Larry Cohen has crafted a marvelously twisted tale of lawlessness and discord that far exceeds whatever we imagine it could be based on the premise. The progression of the narrative is as dazzling in the turns it takes as the pervasive accompanying humor is desperately dry. Production values leave a bit to be desired, yet for the story and the playfulness, the feature feels like it could have been made only a few short years ago. 'Bone' is a striking, entrancing crime comedy that bests many similar pictures of the decades since, and earns my heartiest recommendation. -
view_and_review8 January 2020I'm trying to figure out how I can properly criticize this movie without going on a profanity laced tirade. This movie wasn't just bad, it was insulting.
I like Yaphet Kotto, but this was a bad role. Yaphet Kotto-who is the reason I even watched-plays a thief and a rapist. He's not the brightest thief but that seems to play right into the stereotype of black men. He was a big black thief that wanted to terrorize a precious white couple. And, to make sure he got compliance from the husband, he threatened to rape his wife. This movie played right into the worse imaginable stereotype and the worse fears of many a white male.
When Bone (Kotto) he even has a typical black criminal nickname) couldn't find any significant money in the huge home he sent the husband, Bill (Andrew Duggan), to the bank to drain his account while he stayed back to essentially keep the wife hostage. If Bill wasn't back with "the bread" by three then Bone was going to rape his wife.
This sent Bill scurrying off to the bank, but while he was out he decided, "Eff it. I don't like my wife anyway." He hits a bar, meets a younger woman, and they bang it out in her house.
Meanwhile, back in the mansion, Bone attempts to rape the wife but can't get it up. Later, he makes jokes about being a rapist (more on that later) and while bearing his soul the wife decides to boost his manly ego by having sex with him. And that's when I turned it off.
Honestly, I should've turned it off when he was joking about being a rapist because that s#@* isn't funny. He was opening up about how he gets off by a woman fighting back and scratching and the wife did her best to assuage him by saying, "Didn't I fight back?" Like she was bothered by his inability to rape her. WTF!!! He even says, "What kind of rapist am I?" Are you serious man!?! He then goes on to wax nostalgically about how he used to be a feared n***a.
His speech and this movie was repulsive on a cellular level. I was revulsed and repulsed to an extreme degree. If this was a satire it was in the poorest of tastes. Whatever it was it was utterly horrible. -
sam2u14 June 2004I have to say I love the movie's intent just as much as the movie itself. I had a friend of mine watch it with me who tends to do what we all do sometimes, even myself. That is live the pretend so-called life instead of doing what the so-called hippies do. We often look down on people seem to not have "done something with their lives", and at the same time secretly admire them for doing what they want with their lives. When the movie finished she just stood there saying, "I don't get it", but the look in her eyes told me she got it all right. The funny thing is the movie really is like a judgment on America and it's lifestyle that will be even more significant as this lifestyle and the way it kills us becomes more apparent.
Rent this movie and watch it with some of your affluent buddies who are one bad investment or FCC investigation away from poverty. They might learn what life is all about before it is too late. -
fireflyhill4 December 2000"Bone" opens with a shot of the bucolic veneer of affluent white America. There is something glib and greasy in the ease with which the Beverly Hills couple, Bill and Bernadette, interact with each other at the side of their pool. Their leisure is an act of aggression. There is something under the surface, unnamed, ignored.
The rat in the pool is like a stopper that keeps the veneer in place. When the rat is removed, the stopper is unplugged and we then watch as their delusions slowly go down the drain. As the characters speak of their son we see flashbacks that serve the dual purpose of representing the delusional story that the parents tell themselves, and perhaps even their mental image of the nightmarish reality of the situation.
These visual spikes tear into the veneer that has been spread before us. Each character has created an image of themselves in their heads. It is an idealized version that they don't live up to. This movie is not only an indictment of an era, it's a stab at that which makes us human. The impact of the film not only punctures the skin, ripping off the veneer, it pushes past flesh and strikes bone. -
flk1940-857-71665517 March 2021One of his greatest roles ever . this movie is awesome . overlooked totally weird . yes the usual coulnt make it today thing going on .
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princebuster8213 May 2006This movie didn't have much to offer in the way of well, anything.
Everything's kind of played for laughs and made in the semi-surreal documentary style of filming that was sort of in vogue at the time.
The acting was OK by everyone except Yaphett Kotto who never has learned how to not overact. You can argue that he's supposed to be playing a maniac, yet he acts the same in every movie he's been in.
I had high hopes for this movie, Larry Cohen's directorial debut, Yapphet Kotto playing a racist homicidal rapist, etc. But Kotto seems about as harmless as a parakeet and the story is just very flat. Just mediocre all the way around.