Reviews by johanlefourbe

I really didn’t know before watching this movie but it is actually a seriously obscure movie. Indeed, not even 600 people have rated it on IMDb which is really low and, after 5 long years, I’m still the only one who has rated the damned thing on this website. To be honest, I had no idea what to expect from the damned thing but since I always had a weak spot for William H. Macy, I thought I might as well check it out. Eventually, as usual,  Macy was pretty good and, on top of that, I thought that the story was actually pretty interesting. Eventually, the main problem with this movie was the way they handled this trio of kidnappers. Indeed, they were basically a bunch of pathetic losers what might have seemed hilarious for the makers but, for the viewers, it became pretty much impossible to root for them. Concerning Ron Underwood, he would direct this movie after ‘The Adventures of Pluto Nash’ and before ‘In the Mix’, 2 movies which were arguably some of the worse released in the 00’s and he hasn’t released another directing effort ever since. Anyway, coming back to our main feature, in spite of its flaws, I thought it was a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre. 

Even though this movie didn’t get much love when it was released, there was a very intriguing cast (John Cusack, Hilary Duff, Marisa Tomei, Joan Cusack, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley) and it was the main reason why I wanted to check this flick. Eventually, there were some good stuff and some not so good stuff in this movie. First of all, I really liked the concept a lot, the satirical tone was pretty awesome and John Cusack really nailed his perfomance. There were also some really funny scenes. But then there were also enough stuff that just didn't work. For example, why on Earth was Marisa Tomei playing her character so straight when everybody was so over-the-top ?!? I always had a weak spot for Tomei but I had the feeling that she had just landed  in the wrong movie. Furthermore, some jokes were just not funny and, above all, it seems that the makers didn't really know if the movie was supposed to be a drama or a comedy. It’s too bad because it really had some potential. Still, the whole thing was intriguing and entertaining enough and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in John Cusack's work.

What the hell happened to Mathieu Kassovitz? After ‘La Haine’, everyone expected him to become one of the most interesting directors of his generation but his career turned out to be rather underwhelming. This movie is a perfect example. Indeed, it was apparently a labor of love for Kassovitz and he spent 5 years developing this comic-book adaptation. Unfortunately, the whole thing turned to a nightmare for Kassovitz who was apparently never allowed to shot the movie as he planned to do as the studio was apparently constantly interfering during the shooting and also during the post-production resulting in a visually interesting movie with a rather boring plot. It’s too bad because Vin Diesel gave here one of his best performances (apparently, Kassovitz couldn’t stand working with him) and the mood of the whole movie was pretty cool. Unfortunately, the story was nothing original and didn’t grab me at all, Mélanie Thierry looked fine but all, seriously, all her lines were just terrible... Eventually, the whole thing was just a wasted opportunity and Matthieu Kassovitz completely discarded this movie when it was released. To conclude, I wonder if the talented French director will ever recover from this mess but even though it could have been awesome, the end-result was really disappointing and I don’t think it is really worth a look.