Oh, yeah, that's just a start, and the dopey, clichéd, mind- numbingness of Class Action just gets worse. Ten minutes into this Michael Apted thing and I was debating doing what I very rarely do--to give up on a movie.
But, I stuck it out. Through the emoting and the legal chicanerying and the feeling that this awful, awful movie would--minus some gratuitous f-bombs (How would we take a legal drama seriously otherwise?)--best be shown on the Hallmark Movie Channel, sandwiched between two episodes of Murder, She Wrote, I just sat there amazed at how bad women look in those business suits with the giant shoulder pads.
1991.
The painful part of the movie is the movie, but the searing pain comes from watching something I almost didn't think possible, Gene Hackman giving a bad performance. He just phones it in here.
The other star, a woman who was having a jump in her career at the time, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, is so inconsequential that I was thinking of the old criticism of an actress in a 1960s sex comedy or something. The writer said that this actress exuded the sex appeal of a bran muffin. One of the funniest lines I've ever read.
Jump to Class Action, and MEM (I don't want to try to write her whole name again because there are only so many keystrokes in a laptop) exudes the acting talent of somebody whose legal drama belongs on the Hallmark Movie Channel. She's utterly bland. In fact, everyone involved has his or her big brick Motorola out and is reading the lines until the battery gives out.
Except the guy who plays the judge; I can't remember his name, but you'd recognize him if you saw him. He was one of the card sharps in The Outlaw Josey Wales.
I don't know if anyone shows this movie on TV, but, if you desire big hair, big shoulder pads, and big, I mean really big emoting and cliché- ing, keep checking Zap2it.
Otherwise, take my advice, legal or not.
But, I stuck it out. Through the emoting and the legal chicanerying and the feeling that this awful, awful movie would--minus some gratuitous f-bombs (How would we take a legal drama seriously otherwise?)--best be shown on the Hallmark Movie Channel, sandwiched between two episodes of Murder, She Wrote, I just sat there amazed at how bad women look in those business suits with the giant shoulder pads.
1991.
The painful part of the movie is the movie, but the searing pain comes from watching something I almost didn't think possible, Gene Hackman giving a bad performance. He just phones it in here.
The other star, a woman who was having a jump in her career at the time, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, is so inconsequential that I was thinking of the old criticism of an actress in a 1960s sex comedy or something. The writer said that this actress exuded the sex appeal of a bran muffin. One of the funniest lines I've ever read.
Jump to Class Action, and MEM (I don't want to try to write her whole name again because there are only so many keystrokes in a laptop) exudes the acting talent of somebody whose legal drama belongs on the Hallmark Movie Channel. She's utterly bland. In fact, everyone involved has his or her big brick Motorola out and is reading the lines until the battery gives out.
Except the guy who plays the judge; I can't remember his name, but you'd recognize him if you saw him. He was one of the card sharps in The Outlaw Josey Wales.
I don't know if anyone shows this movie on TV, but, if you desire big hair, big shoulder pads, and big, I mean really big emoting and cliché- ing, keep checking Zap2it.
Otherwise, take my advice, legal or not.