For those of you that want to write 8MM off as another Death Wish/Dirty Harry vigilante action romp, you're missing the point. If anything, 8MM is the antithesis to what those films are about. You see the possibly irreparable moral and psychological damage that Welles undergoes when he takes the life of homicidal underworld figure who has no qualms with doing away with Welles. Do you ever see a Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson character racked with regret - even when you take into consideration the death of a truly despicable and worthless person? True enough, Welles never stoops so low as to murder an innocent law-abiding citizen, yet you see a dramatic change in his character as the film progresses - and not for the better.

Another thing that I liked about 8MM was Joaquin Phoenix's portrayal of Max California. On the surface, he is a tattooed punk rocker who works in an adult book store. But underneath, he is the moral compass of the film. You'll learn to like Max much in the same way that Welles learns to. While Max lives as a single man without much responsiblity, he respects Welles for his dedication to family life. I especially liked the scene in which Max and Welles meet for the first time - I shouldn't have to tell anyone what kind of magazine Max was hiding his Truman Capote paperback under. And let's not forget the memorable line about trying to "change the devil".

Before I sign off, I must caution you not to expect an easy lighthearted movie. Don't even expect an action flick. But if you want to check out something dark that will make you think and challenge you, you may want to check out 8MM.

Overall rating: 4.25 stars.

This is a disturbing film, and delves into the sleazier side of film making. There is scenes of nudity, sado/masochism, and other sick stuff. The critics didn't like this and many other movie reviewers also tore it up. It is a sick work, but a well done one.

If you want to see a happy film buy "You've Got Mail", or some other all the world is good and kind film. Sadly, this film touches close to the mores of our society, and nobody wants to deal with that. Thousands of Children and young adults, are abducted, or run away from home, and end up on the street and into the society shown by this film. This is a brutal honest look, at something we would rather not admit to. REVIEWED 9/5/99 BY JOHN

John Christian, billionaire, industrial czar, pillar of the community, respectable family man with three children, seven grandchildren, and a wife who loves him deeply, dies suddenly at the age of eighty-one. When the private safe in his study is opened, besides the expected cash, stock certificates, etc., a reel of 8 mm film is found, a film which depicts what seems to be the brutal murder of a teenage girl. Private Detective Tom Welles is hired by a disturbed Mrs Christian to find out if the film is a simulated killing, since she is a kind and caring woman who cannot bear the thought that it might be real.

So begins Joel Schumacher's 8MM, a movie which has all the ingredients of a succesful thriller: extreme brutality, multiple murders, torture, mutilation, blood, greed, sexual perversion, pornography, ****speak, and, to top it all off, the 'snuff' movie around which this film turns. But there is more. Not only are the acting, photography, settings, costumes, dialogue, pacing, and the haunting background music all superbly managed, but the movie is also that rarity among the torrent of mindless trash which Hollywood, in its extreme contempt for the modern audience, inflicts on us today: it is a movie with a deep, even profound, meaning, a meaning with cosmic implications. This meaning is one which will probably escape many viewers. It will not escape those who have carefully read Sade, a writer who has replaced Kafka as the key figure of the modern sensibility. Only Sade prepares us both to witness and understand the sort of horror that we find at the center of Schumachers brilliant metaphysical thriller, a thriller in which figures who seem to have stepped right out of Sade's 'Juliette' or '120 Days of Sodom' have been transplanted into the modern world.

Do not miss this movie.