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Reviews

Illegal tender

Ineptitude and idiocy

By PETER KEOUGH | August 29, 2007

0.5 Stars

ILLEGAL TENDER: So flamboyantly dumb it must be intentional.

The spectacle of Wanda De Jesus storming out of her tony suburban Connecticut home, blazing away with two stainless-steel-plated 9mms, and bellowing, “Come on, you motherfuckers!”, almost makes the rest of Franc. Reyes’s gangbanging pseudo-epic worth sitting through. The ineptitude and the idiocy hurt the eyes — and then some scene pops up that’s so flamboyantly dumb, it must be intentional, perhaps with an eye to a future Grindhouse twin bill. But irony or homage was no excuse for Tarantino and Rodriguez, and it sure isn’t for Reyes, who despite showing promise in 2002’s Empire here takes his trash straight. De Jesus plays a widow who invested wisely (Microsoft!) after her dealer husband got whacked in the ’80s. She’s been spoiling her boy, Wilson Jr., up to now, but when the past catches up, it’s time to break out the Uzis. Let’s just say Brian De Palma’s Scarface has a lot to answer for.

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Topics: Reviews , Brian De Palma

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