docweasel

Mild, indirect spoilers: Incoherent plot, monkey-cam technique, talky, but with inane, juvenile dialog, boring. These are just some of the things that made this movie unwatchable. The two monologues by Jane was unintentionally hilarious and right out of a teevee movie- then it was like they ran out of money and couldn't come up with a big climax, so they just said "let's wing it!".

---------------------- Major spoiler: A movie about overgrown frat boys, acting like frat boys: drugging, whoring, fighting, then one of them kills the rest of them, then himself. The End! And a waste of Gugino, to boot.

I deleted the movie as soon as the credits came up. Don't waste your time. And a _terrible_ soundtrack, but that only figures.

Badly written, melodramatically acted by Penn. We're expected to empathize with a would-be assassin who plans to kill not only the president but at least hundreds of other innocent people. First off its in extremely poor taste, especially after this exact scenario almost came true except for the courageous acts of the passengers of Flight 93. Why not make a movie glorifying those heroes instead of this maniac.

Penn's apologists point out its based on a book that came out in 1999. Please. If 9/11 never happened this movie never would have been made. Penn continues to spiral into a career nosedive because of his almost obsessive preoccupation with the Bush administration.

I predict this turkey will sink even faster than Stone's Alexander, and I'm sure Penn will read "Republican conspiracy" into the failure, but the movie fails on every level. This is one of those "career killer" type movies that is so bad in conception and realization that the only good thing about it is that it will probably kill the chance that Penn will be able to come up with another one.

I would give this a negative rating if I could. It sucked the very essence of life from my soul sitting through it, but I was with an important client and couldn't leave, but the uncomfortable atmosphere in the viewing room was palpable and virtually every witness to this abomination left the room shaking their heads and tearing the film apart. Its unentertaining, over-wrought at times and boring at others. Its an exercise in bad movie-making is what it is. I don't think I'll even have to suggest you don't see it, I doubt many people will anyway.

Penn varies between hammy over-emoting and blank, comatose nothingness, never hitting a decent level in between. The dialogue is laughable and even the production values are very lame. I wish there was a level lower than 1 for this

Interesting parallel with To Kill a Mockingbird:

"Brock Peters" plays Henry, the freed Negro slave who is falsely accused of robbery but, defended by Abe Lincoln, is found Not Guilty due to the fact he has a damaged hand and couldn't have committed the crime. Later, Peters would play Tom Robinson in _To Kill A Mockingbird_ , a black man falsely accused of raping a white girl, which Atticus Finch shows he could not have committed due to the fact his hand (and arm) were damaged. Peters didn't get off as easy in that film however, due to the prejudice of the townspeople who find him guilty anyway. Too bad he didn't have Abe Lincoln defending him again instead of that shyster Atticus Finch! I liked this movie very much. docweasel

Sometimes you'll see a movie where a really great actor will inspire novice actors or mediocre talents to act above their level. Here I think Madge's influence had the result of otherwise competent actors acting _down_ to her level. Julianne Moore, Willem Dafoe, Joe Mantegna are pretty respected actors and even Anne Archer and Frank Langella have done some good work in their careers, but this movie would have to be the low point of any of their careers.

I regularly suggest renting this to friends with the challenge that I bet it will be the worst movie they have even seen. I've yet to be told I was wrong. The really laughable, idiotic "plot", dialogue and characterisations are so over the top the movie ends up just being ridiculous. The most pathetic thing is this sex obsessed disaster isn't sexy, even the sex scenes are idiotic. And Willem Dafoe may be many things and a very versatile actor, but sex god he ain't. The sex here just comes off as creepy and mildly disgusting. Also, if you examine the film, there's not one likable character in the entire movie.

A calculating slut kills a foolish old pervert, an inept prosecutor tries an impossible case that he never should have taken to court, a jerk of a defense lawyer betrays his profession's ethics (are there any?) and his moron of a wife (hey, she takes him back, she can't be too intelligent) and various other spiteful, greedy, dislikable characters slime in and out of scenes. Even the (stereotypical) black female judge earned my permanent enmity with her idiotic lines.

Too bad they all couldn't have died at the end. An massive earthquake or meteor strike would have been a good plot device, and just as believable as anything else that happened in this movie.