The Phoenix Network:
 
 
About  |  Advertise
 
Features  |  Reviews
Best2012Vote-1000x50

Illegal tender

Ineptitude and idiocy
By PETER KEOUGH  |  August 29, 2007
0.5 0.5 Stars
insidetender
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.
Related: Heavy casualties, New to DVD: December, 20 2006, Body dabble, More more >
  Topics: Reviews , Brian De Palma
| More

 Friends' Activity   Popular   Most Viewed 
[ 02/17 ]   "Guys, Gals, and Glitter"  @ Club Café
ARTICLES BY PETER KEOUGH
Share this entry with Delicious
  •   REVIEW: CORIOLANUS  |  February 16, 2012
    In a line of fascist-style stagings of the Bard from Orson Welles's 1937 black-shirted Julius Caesar to Richard Loncraine's brown-shirted Richard III (1998), Ralph Fiennes sets his lean and hungry take on Shakespeare's tragedy in a mo dern-day war zone, paring the play to a brisk two hours.
  •   REVIEW: SAFE HOUSE  |  February 15, 2012
    Daniel Espinosa's over-edited but engaging spy thriller delves into edgy territory untouched by any of the numerous movies it imitates: it has Brendan Gleeson do an American accent.
  •   REVIEW: THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY  |  February 15, 2012
    The most touching love story and best children's movie in a long time, Hiromasa Yonebayashi's adaptation of Mary Norton's book The Borrowers employs old-fashioned animation techniques to create a world that is familiar, uncanny, and luminous.
  •   REVIEW: RAMPART  |  February 15, 2012
    The rotten cop flick has become a mini-genre of sorts, a subset of noir, going back at least to Orson Welles's Touch of Evil .
  •   REVIEW: THE OSCAR NOMINATED SHORT FILMS 2012: DOCUMENTARY  |  February 10, 2012
    The films in this program contain some of the most powerful images to be seen on the screen this year.

 See all articles by: PETER KEOUGH

MOST POPULAR
RSS Feed of for the most popular articles
 Most Viewed   Most Emailed