Customer Reviews

Crimewave

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Sam Raimi is the man. SPIDER-MAN surpassed just about everyone's predictions and is the biggest hit of the year (2002) so far (HARRY POTTER and THE TWO TOWERS may knock Spidey off, though). However, Raimi always was the man. He, Rob Tapert, and Bruce Campbell parlayed their little independent film (EVIL DEAD) into a great franchise and used it to start their careers.

CRIMEWAVE was the first major feature for all involved after EVIL DEAD. The film was written by Raimi and two other quirky directors, the Coen Brothers. The movie was largely filmed in Detroit and the lead character was originally written specifically for Bruce Campbell (you can just picture how much better the movie would have been with Campbell in the lead role instead of the no name they cast instead). However, that was before Tinsletown took over. Campbell was scrapped as the lead, but Raimi kept him on in a supporting role. A new beginning and ending was filmed because "audiences just won't get it otherwise" and Raimi and company lost some editing control over the final product. The film was also plagued by all sorts of conflicts and from what I've gathered wasn't the most pleasant of shoots.

The end result is CRIMEWAVE, a quirky little dark comedy that if left alone would have been much better. The movie itself is full of humor on a variety of levels. The direction is intriguing and the acting is campy. The film would probably be PG by todays standards and only contains a handful of "foul" language and largely "cartoon" violence.

If you are a fan of Raimi, the Coens, or Campbell, this film is a must see. Also, if you like dark comedies full of slapstick humor you will probably enjoy it.

I LOVE this movie! I have had it on vhs since it first came out.
Reed Birney is adoribly innocent & dorky playing Vic in the lead role. But Brion James & Paul Smith stole the show playing the pest patrol baddies...getting rid of pesty people too. The cast is sweet, but the comedy is a silly dark crazy adventure. This movie is a classic funny movie. If you haven't seen it, give it a try...it'll be a dorky zanie ride! Even my 78 year old dad loved it for laughs, and he's got every new movie released!

This is one of my all-time favorite comedies. Louise Lasser and Sam Raimi have gone out of their way to make this film look as much like a cardboard box-propped B movie as you could get. So it's cheap! Hurray for this kind of cheap! What is the era? It has the feel of a mid-60's film, but with a splash of early 80's and mid-40's hair styles, huge clunky 70's tuna boat cars in close up scenes and 50's style automobiles packed in a few outside scenes, with big band swing music from the early 20th century. This movie capitalizes on sheer stupidity and pulls it off rather well. Don't expect an "Airplane" or "Naked Gun" brand of foolishness. This is in a class all it's own. I wish there were other films like this. My heart was broken to find that the only DVD it is available on is a region 2 coded European disc with no English option. Watch this film only if you enjoy lame comedy and don't mind laughing at things that make other people think you're not playing with a full deck.

Whether or not you like this film depends on if you thunk it is silly or funny. It is certainly not a laugh out loud film and most of the events are improbable; that is, as improbable as a three stooges flick. Three out of the box, innovative film makers wrote it and released it in 1986. A nerdy, unintelligent, shlemiel, and shlemazal is determined to win a girl he helps in a near automobile accident. The car is driven by one of two maniacs, killers for hire, who are the funniest/silliest figures in this film noir. Everything goes wrong for the romantic jerk, begining with a punch in the face and ending in nearly being killed. The two madmen are hired by one partner to kill another partner, but the boobs accidentily/foolishly kill him as well, and then go on a violence spree begining with the attempted murder of the wife of the partner who saw them do the killing and ending in them trying to murder the jerk's sweetheart.

For most filmgoers, Sam Raimi's "Crimewave" (also known as "The XYZ Murders") is something of a curiosity, whose reputation rests mostly on the names involved - Raimi (director and co-writer), Joel and Ethan Cohen (co-writers) and Bruce Campbell (original star replaced by Reed Birney). This is mildly amusing comedy that might have been "Army of Darkness" or "The Hudsucker Proxy."

The comedy starts with a frame story set in "Hudsucker Penitentiary," where a death-row inmate Victor Ajax (Reed Birney) is about to be executed. Victor says he is innocent, but nobody cares. In the following flashback the film shows us how Victor an ordinary guy fell in love with his "dream girl" Nancy (Sheree J. Wilson) at first sight and how they got involved in a series of murders committed by contract killers (Brion James and Paul L. Smith).

"Crimewave" is an unusual combination of slapstick comedy and crime suspense. It is about silly physical gags and brawls on the neon-lit streets. The film's climax includes a car chase on the highway, mixed with cartoonish battles on the running vehicles. It is not "Matrix Reloaded," to be sure, but stunts are surprisingly good, even thrilling at times. Two character actors Brion James and Paul L. Smith are excellent as killer version of Laurel and Hardy.

Not everything works, however. Reed Birney's "comical" character tries a bit too hard while dead-pan humor would be more effective. The two stars lack chemistry and their romance is not credible. Bruce Campbell appears as a playboy Renaldo "The Heel," not a very funny character (and he suddenly disappears). "Rear Window"-like episode of Mrs. Trend (inexplicably top-billed Louise Lasser) and her predicament could have been funnier with better pace and acting. Famous movie producer Edward R. Pressman appears as her husband, but his role is the weakest in the web of eccentric characters.

The film is also known for its troubled production, which Campbell recounts in his wonderful memoir "If Chins Could Kill." To some viewers, the behind-the-scene episodes he amusingly recounts may be more interesting the film itself.

Sam Raimi proved to us, with his first film "The Evil Dead", that his mixed Comedy/Horror combination made his original directing style stand out. Combining complex camera angles, camera movement and overbearing gore. Crimewave takes filmmaking to a new medium, combing the classic film noir detective theme, with comedic horror/drama heroes and villians. Collaborating the screenplay with his assistant editor from the evil dead, not to mention future vituroso director "Joel Coen" , and Joel's brother screenwriter "Ethan Coen", the screenplay stands out as an early inspiration to Coen Brother's films, such as "The Hudsucker Proxy" and "Miller's Crossing". Crimewave is clever and enjoyable from begining to end. The flaws sustain the intense overacting and slaptstick mentality, yet that adds an extra flavor to Raimi's love of the three stooges. Starring Paul L. Smith, as the unappealing and weak willed , hero, security worker,and Louise Laser as a temptress turned nun. Also, starring Edward Pressman and Brion James as the agressive villian duo of exterminators. Crimewave is a stylistic action thriller bleeding with horror and slapstick comedy. A wonderful second feature for horror's backbone, Sam Raimi.

This somewhat cartoonish comedy was written by the Coen brothers quite sometime ago. It's not refined and quite at the level of "Raising Arizonia" or"Blood Simple", but for broadly played comedy it's hard to beat. This particular DVD is by way of China, but the copy is good and if you want you have the option of Chinese subtitles.

If you have a lot of love for Sam Raimi or the Coen brothers, it's worth checking out. It's a very silly movie, a live action version of Bugs Bunny cartoon. Bruce Campbell has a part, and Frances McDormand makes an appearance.

When I saw this movie I thought it would be okay. By the end of the movie I was laughing like Hyena just not as annoying. I think Sam Raimi has directed a hilarious movie and that Bruce Campbell was a great character. They have inspied my friend and I to write our own movie and we hope one day to meet them.

I happened to see this movie years ago on a cable channel. I never knew the name of this film until recently. It is one of the funniest slap-stick movies out there. Bruce Campbell is a riot. The kind of guy you love to hate! I would really love to add this movie to my collection of Sam Raimi films.