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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid without the humor., February 21, 2005
This review is from: Gun a Car a Blonde (DVD)
I have to chuckle when I see a review of this saying its full of twists and turns. In fact, its 100% predictable and can be explained in one sentence..."Paralyzed man imagines fantasy where he is private dectective". Care to guess the "trick" ending?
Anyhow its a low budget movie where everything is just a bit off. The characters dress and talk, more or less for the 1940s. But they drive a 1959 Caddy. And when the detective enters the blond's house, there's a modern motion detector for the burglar alarm, right over his head. Whoops.
But its not terrible. BillyBob is in fine form and the others would probably be fine too if the script was better. The blond is built but you won't mistake her for Lana Turner.
So, if you want to see Film Noir, for heaven's sake, get Out Of The Past. If for some reason you want a modern slant, try Cast A Deadly Spell or Witch Hunt. But if you've already seen these and want to see some actors smoking a lot of cigarettes and trying very hard to be cool, its fairly entertaining.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
3* = average of 4* B&W, 2* color, February 16, 2004
This review is from: Gun a Car a Blonde (DVD)
This 1997 film has many scenes that alternate between color and black-and-white (B&W). The premise of the movie is that a person with the reality (i.e., in color) of spinal cancer can obtain significant relief by a complete delving into a world of fantasy (in B&W), which takes place in a 1957 film-noir setting. As a big fan of the black-and-white film-noir movies of the 1940s and 1950s, I found this film quite appealing. Although it probably was not meant this way, the film is an effective parody of the film-noir genre, complete with its stylized settings and simplistic dialog. The B&W components are well photographed with noir motifs (the classic venation blind effect, for instance), and the color scenes segue effectively and often cleverly into the B&W scenes, such as when hands on the wheel of a wheel chair transition into hands on the steering wheel of a car. Many events (as the tossing of a fortune cookie), lines, and of course characters from the color parts are reused in the B&W parts. In the at times tedious color part concerned with the modern world the unsympathetic cancer victim and his obnoxious sister and her boyfriend, who have some laughable lines, are admittedly quite off-putting. Neither color part nor B&W part stands alone, but the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The jazz score of the movie is very appealing.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not too bad, Thompson's a knockout; Lenz holds up well, April 1, 2004
This review is from: Gun a Car a Blonde (DVD)
This movie, featuring scenes in black and white and colo[u]r, is part detective story, part inner struggle, for the man who spends his time in a wheelchair, griping about life. That is, until his friend (played by the late John Ritter) tells him about a means of creating a fantasy life for himself. He does that, which is what leads to the "detective" part of the story. He (Metzler) plays a detective named "Stone", and he's visited by a blonde; played by the stunning looking Andrea Thompson (who reveals quite a bit more than she did on NYPD Blue-WOW! [unfortunately, the scene is in black and white, but she still looks good, in any case]). Kay Lenz, who still has it "going on", and has held up well body wise, if she's not had anything done, as his whiny sister is good. With Billy Bob Thornton and the aforementioned late Mr. Ritter [who all play dual roles] it's not too bad. Not a classic but not bad [especially if you want to see what Ms. Thompson was hiding under those "detective" clothes on NYPD Blue]. Features include the theatrical trailer and credits and a synopsis of the story. [Problem is the "cast" part only mentions the three actors, Thornton, Metzler, and Ritter.] Still a fairly reasonable movie, for the most part. (I got it for cheap, but I won't say where, as it would be competition for Amazon.)
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