I went into this film with no expectations. Still, I was horribly disappointed. As I saw the opening credits roll by, I was pretty excited: Buscemi, Lloyd, and... Walken! As it turns out, the actors were just fine. They did what they could but no one could polish a turd like this.
The writing was staggeringly bad. All of the dialog fixated on the characters using cute little terms for things. It seemed like a very awkward effort to be hip. Half the time they made no sense at all. The whole "Give it a name" routine seemed like a very forced attempt to create some sort of catchy phrase along the lines of the "Fuggedaboddit" in Goodfellas. Jimmy the Saint's rambling monologues seemed like they were pulled from some teenager's diary. I loved the way he just sort of read those lines to the air and everyone pretended to listen. I felt really bad for Garcia. He's no Pacino and not even Pacino could make any of those lines sound like they made any sense. And what was with his wavering accent? All of the empty characters seemed like they were written with Kevin Costner in mind.
The epitomic moment of this film is when Critical Bill insists on playing a cop and Jimmy caves in and lets him do so with the insurance that he's not allowed to open his mouth. Jeez! I wonder if he'll somehow screw everything up... by... opening his mouth or something? The slightly-too-loud background music indicates that this is very possible! Let us continue to watch and see! Jimmy's whole fling with Dagney was so tacked-on-- as was his relationship with Lucinda. They had no bearing on the rest of the film. There were many little stories that all involved the main character but none of them had anything to do with each other and none of them had any development within themselves. There were no surprises in the movie and I simply didn't care for any of the characters except for, perhaps, the kids that got killed out on the highway. They, of course, were simply props in the film. For that matter, all of the characters were simply props. Lifeless robots with flashy nicknames who drift about with a single motivation: the script-- They must read the lines they have been given and hope that the editors make sense of it all.
What was with Jimmy beating up the dude in the office? That whole scene was pointless. Are we supposed to think that he's some kind of stand-up guy now? What was with those abrupt clips from the dying people slapped randomly through the film. How poetic. How deep. Not really.
I can't bear to think of it any longer. To sum up: bad story, flat characters, horrid dialog, poor editing-- A poor attempt to cash in on the Pulp Fiction popularity of the time. It would give it zero stars, but it gets one point for Walken and one point for Buscemi.
The writing was staggeringly bad. All of the dialog fixated on the characters using cute little terms for things. It seemed like a very awkward effort to be hip. Half the time they made no sense at all. The whole "Give it a name" routine seemed like a very forced attempt to create some sort of catchy phrase along the lines of the "Fuggedaboddit" in Goodfellas. Jimmy the Saint's rambling monologues seemed like they were pulled from some teenager's diary. I loved the way he just sort of read those lines to the air and everyone pretended to listen. I felt really bad for Garcia. He's no Pacino and not even Pacino could make any of those lines sound like they made any sense. And what was with his wavering accent? All of the empty characters seemed like they were written with Kevin Costner in mind.
The epitomic moment of this film is when Critical Bill insists on playing a cop and Jimmy caves in and lets him do so with the insurance that he's not allowed to open his mouth. Jeez! I wonder if he'll somehow screw everything up... by... opening his mouth or something? The slightly-too-loud background music indicates that this is very possible! Let us continue to watch and see! Jimmy's whole fling with Dagney was so tacked-on-- as was his relationship with Lucinda. They had no bearing on the rest of the film. There were many little stories that all involved the main character but none of them had anything to do with each other and none of them had any development within themselves. There were no surprises in the movie and I simply didn't care for any of the characters except for, perhaps, the kids that got killed out on the highway. They, of course, were simply props in the film. For that matter, all of the characters were simply props. Lifeless robots with flashy nicknames who drift about with a single motivation: the script-- They must read the lines they have been given and hope that the editors make sense of it all.
What was with Jimmy beating up the dude in the office? That whole scene was pointless. Are we supposed to think that he's some kind of stand-up guy now? What was with those abrupt clips from the dying people slapped randomly through the film. How poetic. How deep. Not really.
I can't bear to think of it any longer. To sum up: bad story, flat characters, horrid dialog, poor editing-- A poor attempt to cash in on the Pulp Fiction popularity of the time. It would give it zero stars, but it gets one point for Walken and one point for Buscemi.