Letterboxd — Your life in film

A fascinatingly misguided morality play about how racist murderers have feelings too.

Every time he says "baby" take a drink.

Joe Mantegna as Fat Tony voice: "It's an erotic thriller!"

Discussed on episode 3 of The Suspense is Killing Us.

Discussed on episode 3 of The Suspense is Killing Us.

Allegedly Robert Evans loved Joe Eszterhas' script for this so much he sent the writer a congratulatory note, um, inside a young lady. Eszterhas later recalled in his autobiography: "The note smelled fantastic."

I've always had a real soft spot for this, all moody and mopey idiosyncrasy and atmosphere making up for its muddled, repetitive story, almost 2 1/2 hours of Alec Baldwin with a fluctuating accent stomping around Nawlins punching guys with names like Bubba and Toot. Eric Roberts in cornrows. Everyone spouting this jacked up Scott Frank dialogue, shit like "Ah heard you was sayin' ah should be lookin' over mah shoulduh befoah sumthin' heavy falls awn me!" Classic.

I'd forgotten what a smirking little two-hander this was, an almost perfect capture of King's voice right down to the silly scary music cues whenever Wilkes gets angry. The kind of thing that's so slick and expertly modulated that it almost feels tossed off.

Feral hillfolk vs. glam punkers, pretty much sells itself. Unexpectedly laced with pathos.

Vaguely worth it for a crazy stunt-almost-gone-wrong toward the end, and for the sub-LAWNMOWER MAN iteration of VR on display.

"Worse than SHOWGIRLS!" -- Rolling Phone magazine.

Joe Eszterhas obviously doesn't care whose toes he steps on. Take that, you venal fatcats! A true renegade.

Cameron's tin-eared writing plus Rodriguez's juvenilia is as dire as you'd expect, but Cameron's design and FX perfectionism plus Rodriguez's simple (and finally well-employed) economy is as tantalizing as it sounds. This is all over the place, an often eye-popping (sometimes literally) YA dystopia with some of the clumsiest writing and performances of either filmmakers' careers and a halting narrative that promises alien wars and global socioeconomic upheaval but delivers robot swordfights and Rollerball tournaments. A mess I will probably sit through a few more times.

Another one of these interminable courtroom thrillers seemingly made by people who have next to zero understanding of legal procedure because if they did the whole movie would be over in 15 minutes which honestly would have been great since the one they made is stupid fucking boring.