This is not a bad movie, but it sure doesn't greet the viewer in any expected way. You're not given any hit about who to like or who is the bad guy, so if you get stuck trying to figure that out it's going to make the movie less enjoyable. Although it's twisty plot makes you think that's what it's all about, you really have to approach it as a character-driven piece. Even the characters you end up disliking (I found Mars Girl annoying to no end) are played well, so you can't really fault the actors for how it doesn't all quite come together. I found myself *wanting* to like the movie more, but I felt a little too isolated as a viewer to care that much.
11 Reviews
Interesting Plot, Poor Ending
chthon26 January 2003
Warning: Spoilers
Although I did give this film a high rating, I was unsatisfied with the ending.
Jack (Matthew Lillard) is a slick con artist who drops in on Max (Vincent D'Onofrio) and Jamie (Valerina Golino), two small time crooks and wannabe con artists. You can tell pretty early on from quick flashbacks that most of what he says is a bunch of lies (don't worry, that's not a spoiler - they make that very clear in the first twenty minutes of the movie). He needs their help to carry out an illegal transaction, something which they have never done before. Max, a raging hot head, looks down his nose at Jack, but Jamie realizes that with their financial troubles, they don't have much of a choice.
All three lead characters give terrific performances as low life criminals, and Lillard is better in this film than I have ever seen him before. Golino, who I am not familiar with, and the always excellent D'Onofrio are great as a paranoid couple. The characters may seem too shallow for some, but they required a great deal of intensity that I doubt most A-list actors could muster, especially D'Onofrio's borderline-psychotic Max.
Here are the spoilers.
I enjoyed the movie, but I thought the ending was a bit unrealistic and predictable. Not bad, mind you - it was ok. But Jack just drops in as a mysterious lying stranger, and you can tell that he will most likely win in the end; you've never seen a film quite this odd before, and yet, it still seems cliche` somehow. Jack was also a tad bit on the slimy, spineless side, and Jamie and Max's paranoia seems like it would have been assets to them rather than hindrances. The fight scene at the end was also poorly choreographed and hard to swallow - Lillard simply can't look as mean and tough as D'Onofrio, not to mention that D'Onofrio's character was meaner as well.
Aside from this, it is worth renting if you are into violent movies with plot twists.
Jack (Matthew Lillard) is a slick con artist who drops in on Max (Vincent D'Onofrio) and Jamie (Valerina Golino), two small time crooks and wannabe con artists. You can tell pretty early on from quick flashbacks that most of what he says is a bunch of lies (don't worry, that's not a spoiler - they make that very clear in the first twenty minutes of the movie). He needs their help to carry out an illegal transaction, something which they have never done before. Max, a raging hot head, looks down his nose at Jack, but Jamie realizes that with their financial troubles, they don't have much of a choice.
All three lead characters give terrific performances as low life criminals, and Lillard is better in this film than I have ever seen him before. Golino, who I am not familiar with, and the always excellent D'Onofrio are great as a paranoid couple. The characters may seem too shallow for some, but they required a great deal of intensity that I doubt most A-list actors could muster, especially D'Onofrio's borderline-psychotic Max.
Here are the spoilers.
I enjoyed the movie, but I thought the ending was a bit unrealistic and predictable. Not bad, mind you - it was ok. But Jack just drops in as a mysterious lying stranger, and you can tell that he will most likely win in the end; you've never seen a film quite this odd before, and yet, it still seems cliche` somehow. Jack was also a tad bit on the slimy, spineless side, and Jamie and Max's paranoia seems like it would have been assets to them rather than hindrances. The fight scene at the end was also poorly choreographed and hard to swallow - Lillard simply can't look as mean and tough as D'Onofrio, not to mention that D'Onofrio's character was meaner as well.
Aside from this, it is worth renting if you are into violent movies with plot twists.
A Waste of a Good Cast
claudio_carvalho4 February 2008
The stranger Jack (Matthew Lillard) arrives in the studio of the crook collector of antiques Max (Vincent D'Onofrio) and tells his ambitious companion and specialist in poisons Jamie (Valeria Golino) that he is Jack's brother. Jamie does not buy his story, dominates Jack and ties him up to a chair. When Max arrives, Jack proposes US$ 100,000.00 for each one to protect him in a negotiation of the antiques "Spanish Judges" with a wealthy and dangerous collector. Max invites his stupid acquaintance Piece (Mark Boone Junior), who comes with his retarded girlfriend that believes she is from Mars, to compose the backup team. However, Jack double-crosses the collector and then he intrigues Jack, Jamie and Piece.
The low budget "Spanish Judges" is a movie with a reasonable screenplay with an awful conclusion that wastes a good cast. Valeria Golino is astonishingly beautiful but together with the good actor Vincent D'Onofrio, they are not able to save the stupid story. Further, the scenes that are supposed to be funny unfortunately do not work, and actually they are silly and not funny. My vote is three.
Title (Brazil): "Tudo Por Dinheiro" ("All For Money")
The low budget "Spanish Judges" is a movie with a reasonable screenplay with an awful conclusion that wastes a good cast. Valeria Golino is astonishingly beautiful but together with the good actor Vincent D'Onofrio, they are not able to save the stupid story. Further, the scenes that are supposed to be funny unfortunately do not work, and actually they are silly and not funny. My vote is three.
Title (Brazil): "Tudo Por Dinheiro" ("All For Money")
Would definitely watch it again!
hubpluh10 September 2003
Lillard's performance was similar to that in "The Curve". Which is also a really good movie if you like plot twists. D'Onofrio gave a perfect performance and Mars Girl is the cutest comic relief. Bottom line. I was very happy with the movie. I was excited up until the end when it took a very ...different turn, even then, I want to see it again. I am curious to see what extras, behind-the-scenes kinda stuff they have on the DVD. Anyways, 2 hours alone in the dark with Lillard and D'Onofrio is never a waste of time.
Terrible, just terrible
dan_c9913 August 2014
I really like Vincent Donofrio, but his movie choices are uniformly bad. The only decent things he's ever been in are Full Metal Jacket and Law And Order - Criminal Intent.
This movie starts off slow and then slumps off from there. Ridiculous characters, implausible behavior, clichéd performances, stupid story. It's all there, all the problems any film can have, all in one place. They should use this as a teaching tool in Film School: coursename = 'How Not To Make a Movie' , and a companion course: 'How To Ruin The Careers Of Actors Who May Actually Have Some Talent'.
Don't waste your time, life is too short and each hour is precious...
This movie starts off slow and then slumps off from there. Ridiculous characters, implausible behavior, clichéd performances, stupid story. It's all there, all the problems any film can have, all in one place. They should use this as a teaching tool in Film School: coursename = 'How Not To Make a Movie' , and a companion course: 'How To Ruin The Careers Of Actors Who May Actually Have Some Talent'.
Don't waste your time, life is too short and each hour is precious...
Finally, A movie that lets Matthew Lillard shine like he should!!
Anticriticdotnet24 July 2001
Wow, I can't believe i'm the first and only one to post a comment on this great movie.
Although the movie itself seemed interesting enough the real thing that attracted me to this one is Matt lillard, granted most people probably either think he's too caffeine happy or just plain sucks but we're both the same age and from the same generation and i've watched this guy so many times that he's one of my favorites now. This is one of the few movies where he is the big shot and main star kind of like in SLC Punk, another great Lillard film.
Baiscally this is storywise your usual heist movies but with more twists than anything, which start to amount to craziness. Also very notable in this movie is another great actor named vincent D'onofrio, a very under appreciated person in the film industry. The woman in the movie is a newcomer and she isn't too bad although you know they hired her mainly for her accent and the nude scene =)
It's a game of jack vs jill vs bob as each want to reap the rewards but share with no one. They all try to get eachother to kill off the other and it's a timebomb waiting to explode. Matt shows his true prowess as the scheming JAck who initially starts the whole scheme. Vincent and woman play a couple of art thieves who are in need of money due to a lack of business. Vince's character is a bit deranged and skitz's throughout the movie but that only add to the intensity of the film.
The surprises left and right are well welcomed and the ending is very non cliche and makes you feel happy, well maybe that depends on the type of endings you like. This movie kept me very interested besides the fact Matt was in it, it's a great movie and i'd highly recommend it to anyone who likes movies. Critic's probably won't like this movie, but they don't watch movies cause they like movies anyway.
Although the movie itself seemed interesting enough the real thing that attracted me to this one is Matt lillard, granted most people probably either think he's too caffeine happy or just plain sucks but we're both the same age and from the same generation and i've watched this guy so many times that he's one of my favorites now. This is one of the few movies where he is the big shot and main star kind of like in SLC Punk, another great Lillard film.
Baiscally this is storywise your usual heist movies but with more twists than anything, which start to amount to craziness. Also very notable in this movie is another great actor named vincent D'onofrio, a very under appreciated person in the film industry. The woman in the movie is a newcomer and she isn't too bad although you know they hired her mainly for her accent and the nude scene =)
It's a game of jack vs jill vs bob as each want to reap the rewards but share with no one. They all try to get eachother to kill off the other and it's a timebomb waiting to explode. Matt shows his true prowess as the scheming JAck who initially starts the whole scheme. Vincent and woman play a couple of art thieves who are in need of money due to a lack of business. Vince's character is a bit deranged and skitz's throughout the movie but that only add to the intensity of the film.
The surprises left and right are well welcomed and the ending is very non cliche and makes you feel happy, well maybe that depends on the type of endings you like. This movie kept me very interested besides the fact Matt was in it, it's a great movie and i'd highly recommend it to anyone who likes movies. Critic's probably won't like this movie, but they don't watch movies cause they like movies anyway.
An awesome tale of deceit...
WildThang779 February 2000
I thought this movie did an excellent job of showing just how unpredictable love can be. It was a tale of treachery and manipulation gone wrong and the consequences that must be paid.
The plot kept one guessing what would happen next and was full of surprises.
The plot kept one guessing what would happen next and was full of surprises.
Good Film, Great Actor!!
Celebrity_Wannabe27 March 2005
I must warn you, there are some spoilers in it. But to start it off, I got "Spanish Judges" on February I think. It was mention it was the last copy, but as I see, it wasn't back-ordered. But either way, I have it. I thought it was good. I wanted to see this mainly because of the great actor, Matthew Lillard (I'm surprised no one on the reviews mention the scar) although it is kind of low budget, getting enough money to make this film would be worth spending. Man, what a good actor.
The story it about a con artist known as Jack (Matthew Lillard) who "claims" to have merchandises called The Spanish Judges. If you don't know what Spanish Judges are or haven't seen the trailer for this and this is the first review you have read, I won't even say what they are. I figure it would be a big twist of no one knew what it was. He needs protection, so he hires a couple who are also crooks, Max and Jamie (Vincent D'Onofrio and Valeria Golino) as well as a crook that goes by the name of Piece (Mark Boone Junior). He has a girlfriend who won't even tell anyone her name because she's from Mars, as she said. So they (mainly Jack) call her "Mars Girl". Everything starts out fine, but then it turns to one big game. A game that involves some lust, lies and betrayal.
There was some over acting in it (Matt and Valeria, as well as Tamara, were not one of them). There were some scenes they could've done better and the score could've been a little better as well. Some of the score was actually good. The theme they used for the beginning and the end (before the credits) was a good song choice, that's my opinion. The fight scene in the end could've been a little longer and a little more violent, but what can you do? One more comment on Matt: Damn, he plays a smooth, slick con man.
I know this is a review, but I need to make a correction towards NeCRo, one of the reviewers: Valeria Golino is not a newcomer. According to this site, she has been acting since 1983. To me, and hopefully to others, she is well known as Charlie Sheen's Italian love interest in both the "Hot Shots!" movies. But good review.
Although I think it's one of the rare films I've seen and it's really good (which is why I gave it 10 stars above), I will give the grade of what I thought when I first saw it.
8/10
The story it about a con artist known as Jack (Matthew Lillard) who "claims" to have merchandises called The Spanish Judges. If you don't know what Spanish Judges are or haven't seen the trailer for this and this is the first review you have read, I won't even say what they are. I figure it would be a big twist of no one knew what it was. He needs protection, so he hires a couple who are also crooks, Max and Jamie (Vincent D'Onofrio and Valeria Golino) as well as a crook that goes by the name of Piece (Mark Boone Junior). He has a girlfriend who won't even tell anyone her name because she's from Mars, as she said. So they (mainly Jack) call her "Mars Girl". Everything starts out fine, but then it turns to one big game. A game that involves some lust, lies and betrayal.
There was some over acting in it (Matt and Valeria, as well as Tamara, were not one of them). There were some scenes they could've done better and the score could've been a little better as well. Some of the score was actually good. The theme they used for the beginning and the end (before the credits) was a good song choice, that's my opinion. The fight scene in the end could've been a little longer and a little more violent, but what can you do? One more comment on Matt: Damn, he plays a smooth, slick con man.
I know this is a review, but I need to make a correction towards NeCRo, one of the reviewers: Valeria Golino is not a newcomer. According to this site, she has been acting since 1983. To me, and hopefully to others, she is well known as Charlie Sheen's Italian love interest in both the "Hot Shots!" movies. But good review.
Although I think it's one of the rare films I've seen and it's really good (which is why I gave it 10 stars above), I will give the grade of what I thought when I first saw it.
8/10
Epic Thriller
cuthwy12 August 2015
Warning: Spoilers
I've always loved this movie - I discovered it by going to a movie shop and it was laying on a shelf and I decided to take a look at it. The movie featured great performances from Matthew Lillard, Vincent D'Onofrio and Valeria Golino that I absolutely enjoyed. This film had a lot of twists and turns and somehow a bad ending that I somehow liked as Lillard walked away like a total badass with the money and the merchandise. I also liked the fact that the movie is centered around antiques, that I love to collect, and Spanish Judges, two dueling pistols, truly look priceless. There are some quite outstanding scenes, such as Jack beating up Max, Jack taking the revenge on his boss who ruthlessly beat him up in a pub, Jack taking the revenge on his friend who laughed at him while he was bleeding and many others. This movie is an epic story of deceit. I suggest everyone to watch it.
mediocre heist flick
Bob719 August 2001
Two aspects of this movie had the chance to make it a good flick, the psychos in the gang, and the plot twists, mostly betrayals. But it gets bogged down in a lot of banter, and the pace gets too slow, not as slow as "High Art", but close. There is also a little too much over-acting, sort of like a high school play. The beginning sets things up fairly well, and the ending has all the plot twists, but you have to bear with the middle scenes. The psychos were well thought out, but not well executed, rather shallowly done. Better caper/heist flicks to rent would be Phoenix, Route 9, or Judas Kiss, and a better psycho movie would be In Dreams, but it might be worth a couple bucks if you don't get your hopes up too high. -Bob
Decent movie
kidhasaces28 February 2004
Im a huge M Lillard fan that's why I ended up watching this movie. Honestly I doubt that if he wasn't in the movie i would of enjoyed it as much or even watched it but once I did watch it realize the story was pretty decent. A bad ending I must say but I did see it coming. It's a low budget movie and some of the actors weren't really good but all in all I rated this movie 7/10.
The suspense of wondering what Lillard was actually up to was what really keeped me interested in this movie.
Its a good rental!
7/10
The suspense of wondering what Lillard was actually up to was what really keeped me interested in this movie.
Its a good rental!
7/10
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