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Simpatico, a review by Rich

Simpatico



Vincent (NICK NOLTE) and Lyle (JEFF BRIDGES) were once the best of friends - training thoroughbred horses in 1970's California, tearing up the highway in a '58 Buick, spending nights around a campfire, dreaming about the future. Seduced by the highstakes world of horseracing, they plan the perfect scam. In the process, they destroy an innocent man's life and the friendship of a lifetime.
Twenty years later, Carter is the multi-millionaire owner of a Kentucky horse farm while Vinnie is a down-and-out deluded barfly living on the edge in California. The time has come, in Vinnie's mind, to settle the score.
Tricking Carter into travelling back to California, Vinnie sets off for Kentucky to ruin Carter and his wife (SHARON STONE) and offer restitution to Simms (ALBERT FINNEY), the man whose life was destroyed all those many years ago.

Very disjointed, contrived and purposeless film, despite an enviable cast list, you feel little sympathy for the characters and it all feels very awkward. The leads have little chemistry together and are generally unconvincing, the plot becomes ludicrous as it searches for entertainment, and the most unfulfilling ending imaginable is coughed up.
Perhaps the only interesting part of the film is watching Nolte clean himself up in a suit, and Bridges's decline to drink and a vest, a real role reversal.
Keeners role as the messenger in particular was unbelievable, seriously is anyone really that stupid?
I read this was adapted from a play, one can only be grateful we were not subjected to this on a stage!
   

**Catherine Keener mini-marathon


(From Riches Random Reviews on August 30th, 2009)

Clerks, a review by Rich

Clerks



If you're in the market for what The Detroit News called "a lively comic adventure," Clerks delivers with wholesale hilarity! It's one wild day in the life of a pair of overworked counter-jockeys whose razor-sharp wit and on-the-job antics give a whole new meaning to customer service! Even while braving a nonstop parade of unpredictable shoppers, the clerks manage to play hockey on the roof, visit a funeral home, and straighten out their offbeat love lives. The boss is nowhere in sight, so you can bet anything can - and will - happen when these guys are left to run the store!

Original absurd college humour comedy, quite an interest viewing of what has become cultish.
At times warmly charming, at others bitingly offensive, but always very funny and watchable.
Infamously low budget, and shot in black & white, this movie is not recommended for the sensitive!
 


(From Riches Random Reviews on March 14th, 2009)

My PILOT Marathon, a review by Rich

Torchwood - Series 1

Everything Changes
WPC Gwen Cooper is at the scene of a brutal murder, when the "special ops", known only as Torchwood, arrive. After witnessing the group bring the dead man back to life, Gwen goes in pursuit of this mysterious organisation, only to see weirder things than she could ever imagine existed. Soon after, she begins to regret giving in to her curiosity, when she meets Captain Jack Harkness.



This exciting and leftfield DOCTOR WHO spin-off finds philanderer of the future, Jack Harness arriving in contemporary Cardiff and being inducted into Torchwood – a covert extra terrestrial and paranormal investigation agency

For the first half an hour or so I enjoyed this fresh series, the mix of sci-fi, special powers, aliens etc blended well with some light hearted banter and a few interesting characters. But towards the end when the lovely Indira Darma (Rome) was killed off in ridiculous fashion, and the constant horrendous Welsh accents started grating, I was glad it finished.
The budget is noticably small, production feels a bit cheap and nasty, the main character is too comical to be taken seriously, and the insertion of swear words made me feel this programme may lose it's identity in terms of intended audience.
A promising idea spoilt.
 

(From My PILOT Marathon on September 18th, 2009)