Reviews

The only thing saving this tripe from being a 1 star for me is the fact that it is technically well made, the music was alright, the cinematography and editing were competently done, too bad every other element was lacking. I don't blame the actors, ask Van Gogh to paint a pile of horse droppings and don't expect anything too pretty.

The plot lacks some of the basic elements that we learn about in fifth grade English. There is about an hour of exposition in the film as we learn various things about the characters and as watching their lives progress in a more or less mind numbing pace. Then all of a sudden Rebecca Hall decides to have an affair with Juan Antonio, she goes to his house, then his annoyingly emo girlfriend shows up with a gun and she changes her mind, I think that's supposed to be the climax, except nothing about the story has changed. As has been said before, all of the characters are exactly where they were at the start of the film. There appears to be no "falling action period" and it simply jumps to denouement instead, then the credits roll. There is no plot resolution, no revelations, no fulfillment of anything. At the end of this 96 minute mess the characters are no better or worse off than they were at the beginning, and neither is the audience.

The acting is competently executed I guess, how much can these actors do with the two dimensional cutouts they have been given to work with. The characters themselves have little to get the audience identify with them, in fact the only characters I came close caring about were the hapless husbands of Vicky and her Aunt Judy who are relegated to supporting roles with little development or involvement in the overall story. Vicky is a self absorbed east-coast intellectual stereotype who cheats on her fiancée and is almost completely self absorbed. Christina is a moral coward and a wishy washy spoiled brat who simply goes to France for a week to "figure herself out" near the end of the film whatever the heck that means. Juan Antonio seems like a walking stereotype of a artsy European, who sleeps around, has deep passionate emotions which seems more at home in a Danielle Steele novel than in the real world, and he treats Cristina pretty badly once his ex shows up. Maria Elena is an overly emotional and clingy bunny boiler, and would seem more at home in a padded room than out walking the streets. She attempts to murder two people, goes through Cristina's belongings, and threatens to kill her and no one seems to care. I spent most of the movie wishing she had succeeded at killing herself when she attempted to near the beginning of the story. Finally Judy has been carrying on a long term extra-marital affair on her hapless husband, then takes it upon herself to risk breaking up Vicky's marriage by getting her back together with Juan Antonio near the middle of the movie.

The movie also strikes me as subtly sexist, all of female characters are increasingly impulsive without a thought given to the consequences of their actions, their decisions are ruled largely by their libido's and emotions rather than their brains. Meanwhile all of the male characters seem far more intelligent, mature, and seem to contemplate the consequences of their decisions.

Overall this film fails on so many levels of basic story telling and film making that it wasn't even worth making or watching, do something more constructive with your hour and a half, like counting the hairs on your head or collecting toenail clippings.

I saw this movie at my girlfriends aunt's place this past weekend, and I must say that it was an all around bad film. It had potential to be a decent to good family film about dealing with tragic loss for both father and daughter, but in stead it came across as a thinly veiled animal rights advert. Even the music was poorly handled, the sound track seemed to range from schmaltzy hallmark commercial stuff to over the top and melodramatic, not to mention that it was actually edited into the film poorly(at some points the music almost drowned out the dialogue), which pulls the viewer out of the film and probably only hurt the acting which was already on life support.

The story itself seemed altogether forced, the mother dies at the beginning because she needs to reach something in the back seat, so she unbuckles her seat belt and stops watching the road. I was left feeling less bad about the mother dying and more thinking that she stupidly risked her husband and daughters life as well as other nearby motorists just to do something irrelevant. Why not have the car get plowed into by a drunk driver who runs a red light or something else equally tragic and realistic?

***SPOILER*** There were also these sub-plots about this tainted animal feed and the decision to put down this little girls favorite dog on the ranch which didn't seem to serve any purpose other than to waste time. And then there was the part where Peter Coyote orders one of his ranch hands to DROWN A LITTER OF PUPPIES, seriously that's the kind of thing they put in bad Stephen Segal movies to make the bad guy even more evil.

Finally, and this is just a nitpick, but Jason London looked like he belongs on the sex offender registry with his greasy looking hair and scraggly goatee.

All around I was left thinking that the biggest tragedy wasn't the little girls mothers death, but that this would stand as the last film in Peter Boyle's otherwise remarkable career. Fortunately for him, unlike Raul Julia in Street Fighter, most people won't remember this movie.