Customer Reviews

Catch .44 [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(17)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

I had heard and read so many scathingly critical comments flung at writer/director Aaron Harvey's "Catch .44" that I was convinced it must surely be a disaster of epic proportion. I'm not sure what anyone else anticipates when sitting down to a straight-to-DVD endeavor, but my expectations tend to run fairly low. Thus, I was actually pleasantly surprised by this film. I found it quite entertaining in its own right with a number of noteworthy performances. Harvey shows a deft hand when handling dialogue and that ends up being a saving grace to the movie. My fundamental issue with the production has little to do with entertainment value and almost everything to do with originality. Like so many young filmmakers, Harvey clearly aspires to be the next Tarantino (and why not?), but "Catch .44" is so derivative that it begs to be judged in an unfavorable light. Even the DVD packaging references the sublime "Reservoir Dogs." I could forgive the similarities in structure and theme such as the chronologically scrambled narrative, overlapping timelines, the eclectic assortment of outlaws, and the clever/cool conversations that have little to do with the plot. But from moment to moment, every sequence in the film seems to have been lifted from another movie and cobbled together. Seriously. For every individual scene, I could name a comparable scene that served the same purpose from an earlier and similar movie.

Taking that out of the equation for a moment, I actually thought the film was successful enough. Despite the presence of Bruce Willis in a minor role (though you'd never guess that from his huge head on the DVD cover), the actual lead of "Catch. 44" is up-and-comer Malin Akerman. Akerman plays a former strip club hostess and pickpocket who was drafted into a larger criminal enterprise by Willis. She and two gal pals (including True Blood's Deborah Ann Woll) have a late night assignment at a rural diner where the score looks to be a load of drugs and cash. But, as you might guess, things don't go exactly to plan and the story shifts into flashbacks to see how we arrived at this point. Forest Whitaker and his numerous accents are on hand, as well, as an enigmatic and dangerous stranger. Before the night is over, the diner will host a series of confrontations and it remains to be seen if anyone will be left unscathed. It's all fun and amusing with appropriate twists and turns, I just felt like I'd seen it all before.

The cast is actually quite good. In general, I really like Akerman who is known largely for her comedic work (various romantic comedies, TV's The Comeback, the fantastic Childrens Hospital, Funny or Die Presents...) as well as her sultry turn in "Watchmen." Here, she displays a toughness that is unexpected and believable. Never heard of her? She's got some high-profile pictures in the offing including the adaptation of Broadways "Rock of Ages" and the biopic of porn star Linda Lovelace in which she is the lead. Whitaker seems to be having a good time as the unstable powder keg who somehow fits into the plot puzzle. Looking for Willis, though? He's got a couple of scenes and is amusing enough as the standard crime boss oddball. The girls actually listen to a Bruce Willis song from the eighties and mention the actor by name, but the gag ends up being a bit too jokey for my taste. Clearly Harvey has an ear and can write, he just needs to develop his own voice. But for now, "Catch .44" ends up being another in a long line of Tarantino wannabes, although a reasonably entertaining one. KGHarris, 12/11.

"I worked with you for seven years...always liked you, always looked after you, but I never trusted you." Tess (Akerman) and her friends have one simple task. Meet a trucker at a restaurant and take the truck from him. Things do not go as planned and secrets begin to come out, as well as bullets. This movie was a surprise. After watching "Set-up" with Bruce Willis (who was in it for about 5 minutes) I was skeptical. While he is not the main star in this one either this one actually is a pretty good movie. This movie reminded me a lot of "Pulp Fiction" in the way that it jumps back and forth all the time until you have every part of the story. Akerman and Whitaker do a great job in this and for someone like Malin Akerman to take a role in an action movie and pull it off as good as she does is also a surprise. While not a top notch action movie this one is still very much worth while and will not let you down. Overall, a very good movie that is well worth your time. I give it a B+.

The title "Catch .44" appears to be some clever play on the phrase Catch 22, i.e. as in a double catch 22 as well as a .44 caliber bullet. The movie really isn't that clever, but pretends to be. I was confused by the beginning. The film opens with Bruce Willis (Mel) talking to an unseen person who he has worked with for seven years but doesn't trust...cue credits. The music is Mexican-Cowboy grindhouse stuff during the credits. We see Tes driving...Then we see three women in a diner, they are talking about living in a man's world , the apparent theme of the film, when they attempt to rob the place and one of them gets shot...more credits and the music is "Fox on the Run." We have ventured into some kind of "Pulp Fiction" diner scene flashback scenario. The names on the girls flash on the screen by their face, which has come to be the rule rather than the exception in modern action films.

Tes, the leader of the group, works at an exotic dance bar. They work for a drug dealer named Mel. The whole diner scene we saw earlier is about a drug deal. While there are cell phones, Mel talks on a red rotary dial phone to Tes in a remote phone booth, apparently something that still exists in Louisiana.

While the girls are driving to the restaurant, there is some subplot action that is going on that appears unrelated.

The movie swaps back and forth between the restaurant shoot-out action and various flashbacks leading up to the scene. The film is supposed to be a Tarantino style grindhouse, but doesn't really work that well as the characters aren't that great. There is no clever grindhouse dialouge. The flashback scenes don't work that well. Forest Whitaker uses different accents during the movie which doesn't appear to be by design. The movie lacked great action.

F-bomb, sex talk, brief strip club nudity

CATCH .44 is a dark, slow moving, thuddingly dull film. Written and Directed with Aaron Harvey it is a film borrowed from so many previous movies about drug dealing, double crossing, attempts at being clever without success, and near constant killing (no, slaughter by gunfire would be a more appropriate word.

The basically behind the scenes Mel (Bruce Willis, who appears to need a new agent to get some appropriate new material for him to chew) sets up a drug interception using three girls with whom he has successfully worked before - Tes (Malin Ackerman), Dawn (Deborah Ann Woll) and Kara (Nikki Reed) - this time making the interception at a diner in the middle of nowhere. Of course there is a lot of girl talk about their mission, an interruption by a madman Ronny (Forest Whitaker) who earlier has murdered a sheriff and poses then as the sheriff to add to the mess. At the diner things just progress from bad to unbelievable, as nearly everyone is brutally murdered and it all ends in a reduced cast (many are dead by now) cat and mouse game that is as dull as yesterday's lunch.

There are some night at the gas station scenes a la Ed Ruscha by cinematographer Jeff Cutter that are artsy, but the rest of the film is a waste of talent. It makes us wonder how tough it is for actors of the caliber of Forest Whitaker and Bruce Willis to turn up some worthwhile material that takes advantage of their skills instead of these blood bath bores they seem to be accepting as scripts. No real saving graces to this film. Grady Harp, December 11

Is it original? No. Is it better than what it steals from? Mostly no. However Catch .44 kept my attention and I was satisfied with what I got. I will be purchasing this but won't be watching it again for a year or so.

Go redbox this for $1.29 before you buy. It seems I am one of the only people who really enjoyed this.

With knowledge of Tarantino films, Kill Bill, Reservoir Dogs, Grindhouse, and Pulp Fiction, this is not a very good film. With absolutely no Tarantino context, this movie is not bad, but really gory.

Catch .44 is a strange movie. On the one hand there are glaring Tarantino homage's (I'm being kind, some might call them straight up rip offs), the music, the stilted dialog, the freeze frame big red names, the pacing, and the gore. But Tarantino's films are themselves homage's to 60's and 70's grindhouse B movies and film noir. Tarantino couldn't have ever made his films if it wasn't for Sam Peckinpah. So is this film really that wrong? It's sort of a copy of a copy, and is that an awful thing?

On the other hand, the film does some interesting time line manipulation, overall it is well made, it has a certain style, and there are some interesting twists and turns.

If I'd never seen those films by Tarantino, I would have bought into this movie. This is the second film Aaron Harvey has directed, and he did a decent job. The first three quarters of the film has a catchy style, Harvey rewinds the timeline four times - moving the plot forward each time. He blends flashback into the story line reasonably well. The rhythm of the film falls apart in the last quarter (mostly when Bruce Willis arrives as a full character, ah yes the bathrobe Speedo scene was the moment), and marches to a more standard melodramatic resolution. The action builds appropriately, the horror of the moment is a surprise (I just knew Forest Whitaker was going to slam that hood on the cops head) and the gore is appropriately repulsive.

If you have seen the Tarantino films, you will very likely dislike this film. The DVD cover marketing says, Reservoir Dogs meets The Usual Suspects. Well, yes it kind of does. Yes there is a scene in this film that is very much like Reservoir Dogs, but has nowhere near the power in this film (Harvey holds the scene too long). And I guess in a roundabout way, the Bruce Willis character Mel, could be a little like Keyser Söze, and the premise a little similar. But, no way, Catch .44 is nowhere near as good as either film. I saw a lot of Kill Bill in this film. Out of nowhere Harvey uses some of the graphics from Pulp Fiction and Grindhouse. So a lot of people will see this film as a rip off of Tarantino.

The three women in this film are gorgeous. Malin Akerman has the most incredible steel blue eyes - Harvey captures them beautifully in this film. Nikki Reed (Twilight series) is a tough slacker but has good chemistry with the other two actresses. The conversation in the diner is classic, she turns that around beautifully. Reila Aphrodite is the quiet third part of the team. Bruce Willis is appropriately disgusting in this film. I had a lot of trouble with his character - it didn't fit within the story line very well. Listening to Kevin Smith talk about directing Bruce Willis (you don't tell him what to do, he tells you what he's going to do), I have a feeling Bruce decided what he was going to do and say, and Harvey had to live with it. Bruce is an excellent actor and a funny man, but it seems like stardom has just gotten too big for him. Forest Whitaker is finally the unlikeable guy I've always wanted him to be. He was insane in this film.

The film is a hard R rating. There is a ton of killing and gore, and strong language. There is the odd random bit of nudity in the background at a strip club, but nothing explicit. Younger viewers should really stay away.

At just over an hour thirty minutes, the film is about the right length. The film was shot with Red cameras. Some of the handheld camera work was awful with that "random" shaky camera look. But mostly the camera work was solid, with good framing, and perfect focus.

I'm torn by this film. On the one hand, for Aaron Harvey's second film, it's not a bad film and does pay homage to the 60's and 70's B picture. On the other hand, he has copied a lot of Tarantino's work. Overall, it's not a horrible film.

Kill Bill - Volume One

Kill Bill - Volume Two

Pulp Fiction [Blu-ray]

The Usual Suspects (Special Edition)

Kevin Smith: Too Fat For 40 (Kevin Smith talks about directing Bruce Willis in Red State)

Reservoir Dogs (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Grindhouse (Two-Disc Collector's Edition) [Blu-ray]

This is a review for the DVD version of Catch .44. The film is average at best. Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars.

The audio is English Dolby Digital 5.1. The SETUP allows you to choose AUDIO COMMENTARY with the director and editor. The SUBTITLES options are ENGLISH or SPANISH. There are no SPECIAL FEATURES.

Bruce Willis has a total screen time of about 7 minutes, Forest Whitaker about 25 minutes, and Malin Akerman about 75 of the 90 minutes. The Bruce Willis character isn't interesting, but Bruce does a decent job with his performance. Forest Whitaker gives an interesting performance playing different personalities, but the characters are not intriguing or interesting. Malin Akerman plays a tougher character, but her character isn't someone worth caring about. This film felt more like a fun exercise for these actors. None of the performances are memorable, and neither is the film. The film starts to get somewhat interesting about halfway through. Too many boring or slow scenes. The story is simple, but quite average, scoring a rating of 2.5 out of 5.

As for the cinematography, the camera work is also average with a few decent and great frames, but most of the film's composition is just plain. A lot of dark and yellow tinted scenes. The film's look is grainy at times, and it does help the atmosphere of the film. As for the music, the particular rock music chosen just doesn't fit with most of the scenes. It sounds okay for two or three, but it really doesn't help the film at all.

If you are a Forest Whitaker fan and want to see his abilities, rent this. You won't be missing anything otherwise.

Now you must consider some dark humor and gore to be fun... so my title might be a little misleading.

The acting is good not Oscar winning, definitely a movie with a twist... therefore the name...i don't want to give it away during this review but will definitely say that I had fun watching it and would watch it again at least one more time. Not the kind of movie that you can watch over and over because once you know the plot it loses its effectiveness.

That being said I give 3 starts as I would consider it to be a good movie but not a great or extraordinary movie.

There are some solid performances, especially from Forrest Whitaker (who as far as I can tell is incapable of phoning it in), and boy some beautiful women to look at (Deborah Ann Wohl from True Blood is enough to make me watch almost anything). But in the end it's just another unimaginative Pulp Fiction rip-off, told out of order for no particular narrative purpose, with ridiculous digital graphics and effects and some bloody splatter that's more reminiscent of the Planet Terror than Reservoir Dogs. I didn't hate the movie, but one viewing was plenty for sure. Title's sill, picture and sound are OK, worth a watch maybe but not much more, glad I got to see it for free.

Catch .44 has a great cast -Bruce Willis & Forest Whitaker alone make for a compelling reason to watch. And the movie has action: it starts with a shootout! But it all starts to feel familiar...

The plot is along these lines. Willis' character is a quirky drug dealer with some hot accomplices (actresses Nikki Reed, Deborah Ann Woll, and Malin Akerman) who have to go out of town to make a big score. The movie starts at the end and is told through flashbacks, so viewers know this scheme is not going to go well.

There is nothing wrong with this Pulp Fiction-esque storytelling and plotting, except well, Catch .44 is fairly obviously trying to do what Pulp Fiction did. In terms of characters, plot, dialog, and camera work, Pulp Fiction did it first and did it better.

Viewers who want to see Bruce Willis play a good role and have some bloody/action-y fun will probably enjoy Catch .44. But if you compare Catch .44 to other movies of the genre it comes off just ok.

I rate the movie 3-stars. It's ok. Good action flik that is trying a little too hard to be like Pulp Fiction.