Product Details

• Actors: Owen Wilson, Morgan Freeman, Gary Sinise, Sara Foster, Butch Helemano
• Directors: George Armitage
• Writers: Elmore Leonard, Sebastian Gutierrez
• Producers: Beate Antares, Brad Goodman, Brent Armitage, Channing Dungey, Gary Marcus
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
• VHS Release Date: July 20, 2004
• Run Time: 88 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00024JC3A
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #406,962 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

There really can't be enough movies adapted from Elmore Leonard novels; his sinuous storylines and fluid, surprising dialogue give any movie a boost from the start. In The Big Bounce, laid-back Owen Wilson (The Royal Tenenbaums, Shanghai Noon) plays Jack, a small-time crook trying to lead an easier life in Hawaii. Trouble is, he can't keep out of trouble, and when he does stay clean, trouble finds him--in this case, in the bikini-clad form of Nancy (Sara Foster), the mistress of a local developer who gets turned on by the whiff criminal activity. She lures Jack into a scheme that ultimately involves a solid cast including Morgan Freeman, Charlie Sheen, Gary Sinise, Bebe Neuwirth, Willie Nelson, and more. Foster doesn't bring much to movie besides her alarmingly sculpted body and the ending peters out, but The Big Bounce has enough snap and crackle that you don't miss the pop. --Bret Fetzer

From The New Yorker

Owen Wilson develops a nice, easy rhythm as a raffish minor criminal hanging out in Hawaii in this genial botch, based on an Elmore Leonard novel. It's one of those everyone-screws-everyone stories (an allegory for Hollywood, perhaps?), but with a peculiar island ambience-people leave their doors unlocked, and strangers walk in, steal things, make love, and walk out. The incoherent plot is punctuated by giant waves crested with surfers. Morgan Freeman, Gary Sinise, Willie Nelson, and Harry Dean Stanton can be seen hanging around the edges, rotting in the sun and drinking. With Sara Foster, who gives a slatternly performance as a slattern. Directed by George Armitage, who became ill during the production and was unable to pull the damn thing together. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Never catches fire, July 22, 2004

By 

TheBandit (SEA-TAC) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Big Bounce (Widescreen Edition) (DVD)

At about the one-hour mark, I realized this movie was never going to really take off. It's short to begin with (88 minutes including credits), and after being very patient it was frustrating that there was no real payoff.

Don't get me wrong, the movie has sort of an easy-going charm. A little too easy-going, to be blatantly honest. For a movie about con men pulling various scams, the movie just didn't have a lot of energy. The cast can't be faulted, plenty of A-list talent. Most of the movie rests on Owen Wilson, who is more or less typecast here, and newcomer Sara Foster, who is stunningly attractive but rather bland as an actress. The movie could've benefited from a little steam, but either Foster had a no-nudity clause or the producers didn't want to go beyond a PG-13 rating for some reason. In supporting roles, great actors like Morgan Freeman and Gary Sinise have very little to do in underwritten roles.

The movie is easy on the eyes, lots of great cinematography featuring the natural beauty of Hawaii. The cast is game, even when working with very little. There are a few off-handed laughs sprinkled throughout. And for two-thirds of the running time, I was fairly certain that things would come together with some nice twists and a satisfying conclusion. The satisfaction never really occurred, and the movie faded from memory not long after it was over.

The dvd looks and sounds great (some cool tunes on the soundtrack, sounding great in the 5.1 mix). I realize the movie was a bomb at the box office, but even so a little more effort could've been put into the supplemental features. Here's what we get: a 12 minute promotional featurette (standard mix of movie clips, cast interviews, behind-the-scenes snippets), a 3 minute mini-featurette about the surfing segments (a very minor part of the movie), and 7 minutes of surf footage outtakes (with surfing being such a sidenote in the movie, I guess they wanted to get some use out of this footage!).

19 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars knuckleheaded remake, August 15, 2004

By 

Roland E. Zwick (Valencia, Ca USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Big Bounce (Widescreen Edition) (DVD)

Why anyone would have thought it was a good idea to remake "The Big Bounce," an utterly unmemorable 1969 caper comedy (based on an Elroy Leonard novel), is a complete mystery to me. Owen Wilson takes over the role of Jack Ryan (originally played by Ryan O'Neal), a petty crook who has some issues with his ex-boss, Ray Ritchie, a corrupt real estate developer in Hawaii. Hooking up with Ritchie's bombshell mistress, Ryan comes up with a scheme to rob the big man of a couple hundred thousand dollars. Ryan is also befriended by an anti-Ritchie judge named Walter Crewes, for reasons that make almost no sense at all until the closing moments. As in all films of this type, Ryan soon learns that people are not always what they appear to be and that the conning game can work both ways. Actually, if the truth be told, Ryan is remarkably stupid for a con man.

The pacing of this film is almost shockingly bad. The story plods along for a good hour or so before the inevitable plot twists begin to kick in. Then, when they finally arrive, they are so poorly worked out and explained that you will probably be scratching your head wondering what it was that just happened - if you still care that is. The attitude on the part of both the filmmakers and the actors is so lackadaisical and indifferent that the film is really an insult to the audience who is paying good money to sit through this mess. In addition to Wilson, the film wastes the considerable talents of Morgan Freeman, Charlie Sheen, Willie Nelson, Harry Dean Stanton, Sara Foster and Gary Sinise, among others, all of whom at least got a trip to Hawaii out of the deal. The people watching the movie, sadly, walk off with only a torn ticket stub for a souvenir.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Incredibly disappointing...., November 10, 2004

By 

Sterling F. (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Big Bounce (Widescreen Edition) (DVD)

Everything about this movie and DVD screams "let's wrap this up and get the hell out of here." For one, the film runs a paltry 1 hour and 20 minutes, which is little better than a special extended episode of a TV show. It seemes like the director realized the film was getting out of control and losing it's pace, so he simply jammed the final scenes together and ended the movie with some island shots. Even the actors seemed like they were just going through the motions in the second half, which is sad considering you have real talent in the leading roles. How disappointed did Owen Wilson, Morgan Freeman and Gary Sinese have to be? At least it was filmed in Hawaii and Sara Foster was in a bikini 90% of the time.

The DVD is short on extra features as well. Other than the obligatory "behind-the-scenes," the rest of the special features are surfing shots. They throw in an Owen Wilson interview in where he mentions that his character was a surfer (for about 30 seconds in the film) and then we go right into the big wave footage. Granted, the shots are pretty cool, but they have nothing to do with the movie.

For the most part I like Elmore Leonard adaptations, but it seems like there has to be a top-line director attached to make sense of the complicated plots, i.e. Sonnenfeld with Get Shorty, Tarantino with Jackie Brown (based on Rum Punch) and Soderbergh with Out of Sight. In The Big Bounce you get a plot that starts out interestingly enough, but by the end every single character is suddenly double-crossing the others within a space of 15 minutes. Where is the plot development? Where are the character's motivations? It all ends up as a big mess. Maybe we should be happy that it's only 80 minutes long. Any more and the stop button on the remote looks very inviting.