Restraining Order (1999) User Reviews (9)

TV movie calibre

[Bob7 · 4/10 · 11 September 1999]

This is a lawyer/mob flick, and the only name among the main players is Eric Roberts, who is rather sappy. It's like a TV movie, has a pretty good plot, but the acting is not great. Not much suspense, sort of like Random Encounter in quality. Not really worth the rental bucks.

-Bob

Eric Roberts fans should be pleased ..............

[merklekranz · 5/10 · 14 June 2010]

The plot of "Restraining Order" is very straight forward, and in a peculiar way reminds me of any number of B grade westerns. It's easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys. There is a land grab motive being exploited by the mafia, instead of the railroad barons. There are plenty of frame ups, and of course Eric Roberts gets to single handed take the law in his own hands and save the day. The only thing missing is his horse. "Restraining Order" is no better or worse than a lot of other Eric Roberts low budget films. It has plenty of action and should please his fans. ........................................................ - MERK

Lame - Not even worth renting

[Ken-208 · 4/10 · 26 July 2000]

Stiff acting and sappy acting. Slow story...action too canned. Really weak premise. Almost insults your intelligence. Right at the beginning the killer exposes himself so the lawyer can identify him and then the rest of the movie the killer spends trying to frame people, and force the attorney not to be a witness...really stupid.

The frame up seems far fetched and it would seem to be too unbelievable in real life that anyone would believe it. The mob must have had the whole town on the payroll. There'd be no reason for any of the movie if the whole premise wasn't so stupid. Boring...waste of time. Don't even bother to rent this yawner. However, if you waste your time on this...watch the facial expressions of the extras and minor characters when they are breifly shown...strange eye movements, wierd stiff facial expressions. It's almost as though they look bored, out of place, or like they are lifeless and trying to stay awake.

well done

[scoobydoo2000ms · 26 July 2000]

Eric Roberts has fast become one of my favorite actors. Not only is he talented but he is versatile. I recently saw him in "Race Against Time" in which he played somewhat of a dramatic role.

Ever since I saw Roberts name attached to "Restraining Order" I wanted to see this movie because I heard of his reputation of being the best action star and I knew I was in for a real treat. What I got out of it by the end was a lot more than I was hoping for from him. He proved he has what it takes to become better than best. In "Restraining Order" he portrays a lawyer who witnesses a murder of a close friend and sees the killer. However, there is nothing he can do. He soon learns that evidence indicates that his wife may be involved. What follows is an awesome movie that combines action with drama.

Dean Stockwell is up to usual tricks as he lends his support to Roberts... or does he? Anyway you cut it the whole cast works really with one another to put together a movie that is very very good.

With each scene that came and went, I got more and more interested in how Roberts was going to take down the crooks. "Restraining Order" was a movie that got me involved and I'm glad it did because it lived up to my expectations.

Hollywood at its worst

[rps-2 · 3/10 · 23 September 2002]

I started planning to give this absurd film a 4. As it ground on and got steadily sillier and more violent, I downgraded to 3 and ultimately 2. If it had lasted another ten minutes, we would have been into negative territory! The plot is simplistic and absurd, the acting is at best adequate and hey gang... theres a fist fight on and under the Santa Monica pier. (How often has that been done before? Not for two months, you say?) There are any number of impossible howlers. The worst is the lone rural mail box on the lawn in an urban neighbourhood of fancy homes. Nobody else on the street has one. But then we did need an excuse for the innocent wife to go out to the curb so the bad guys could drive by and... Well, you know the plot. It's all about the mob whacking people. And thats what should be done to this movie. Whack it!

Even By Roberts Standards This Is Poor

[Theo Robertson · 3/10 · 11 March 2003]

Oh dear , a week after reviewing STILETTO DANCE I said I thought Eric Roberts deserved better films then along comes RESTRAINING ORDER which made me think he deserves all he gets

****** POSSIBLE SPOILERS ******

On the surface this film may sound similar to I CONFESS or ABSOLUTION but whatever potential intelligence that may have been found within the premise is soon forgotten as the film becomes more and more dumb . In fact it becomes downright offensive in the way it treats its audience . A good example is the bit where the plot revolves around a video recording which is seen to be destroyed , then without any explanation whatsoever another video recording suddenly comes into possesion of the hero ! What , he made another recording ? Why wasn`t this mentioned on screen ? Or the bit where a character puts the silencer on a gun meaning he must be a villain about to commit murder - but then it`s revealed he`s a good guy who saves the hero`s wife . In that case why did he need a silencer ? So you see there`s no type of internal logic in this movie .

Note to Eric Roberts : Can you change both your agent and hairdresser please ?

Note to Tatjana Patitz : Stick to modeling because you`re no actress

I had to register in IMDb to let you know how bad this is!

[jrs789 · 1/10 · 29 July 2001]

I have used IMDb countless times to query information on movies, stars and reviews. I have never commented on a movie before. I decided to register on IMDb and comment on this movie because I believe it is the worst movie I have ever seen!

The plot is very poor as is the acting - in all roles! Mr Roberts seems obsessed with getting his shoulder length hair looking 'just right', rather than lending his poor character any semblance of reality.

The beautiful actress that plays Eric's wife (Tatjana) would be better off concentrating on her supermodel career and giving acting a miss if this is the best she can do.

Dean Stockwell's portrayal of the arch villain is comical and better suited to a comedy movie.

The guy that plays the investigative journalist is another unbelievably hollow role - he looks like he would be better off selling newspapers than writing them!

Even editing errors jump out all over this movie, and you don't need to pause and rewind it to find them - they are that obvious (bodies moving from shot to shot and they're supposed to be dead or at least unconscious!)

This movie is almost worth renting for the laughs, only it is supposed to be a drama.

I can't work out whether this movie has been made as some kind of tax dodge and is meant to return a commercial loss, because I have never seen anything quite so bad.

Do yourself a favour and give it a wide berth on the video store shelf.

I gave it 1 out of 10 (and that was only because IMDb doesn't permit a score of '0' which would be more appropriate!).

Nothing to really talk about?

[Pat1973 · 20 July 2000]

I really wanted to like this movie but it was so boring that not even my favorite actor of all time can't save it! It's really nothing to talk about but a crappy plot and very unrealalistic characters. I mean it was that bad. Just try to rent something else. Eric Roberts is still a great actor but rent other choices from Eric's video library. Out of 4 stars I give it 1 star. Eric Roberts RULES! though...

No efforts can transcend the preposterous plot

[daddy warbucks · 29 December 2001]

One has to wonder if Eric Roberts is appearing in dreck like this just to pay the rent -something anyone can be forgiven for- or whether he consciously chooses these vehicles. If it's the latter, he needs to let someone else make these decisions and stop his once-promising career from spiraling ever more downward. The plot is so preposterous as to turn this film into near-parody. Fortunately, the warning signs are manifest early on, and most viewers will mercifully change the channel before wasting much time on this. It's a truism that it's as much work to make a bad movie as a good movie, and there's not much that Hollywood turns out that doesn't have decent technical standards. But none of the crew's efforts can transcend a stinker of a story.