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63%
Overall Rating
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Ranked #5,916
...out of 20,869 movies
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A young drifter discovers his true calling when he's hired by a mobster to stalk and kill a prominent accountant, and then decides to seek revenge when the stingy thugs try to kill him rather than pay him.
--IMDb
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Review by Chad
Added: August 2, 2004
Sean Crawley is a bit of a drifter, working various odd jobs around the neighborhood in order to make a living. When the movie starts up, he's in the process of painting the walls of a house, and soon meets up with Duke Wayne, an electrician who is there to do the wiring on the house. They do a bit of friendly conversating, and Duke asks Sean what his goals in life are, what he plans to do in the future, that sort of thing. Sean really doesn't have much of an answer to that, and this leads Duke to ask him if he'd like another job. This job is pretty simple: follow a local businessman by the name of Eric Gatley and find out everything he does in his daily routine, and report back to Duke with what he finds out. It's discovered that Eric is in the process of uncovering some very damaging information about Ray Matthews' construction company, the one that Duke works for. Ray eventually asks Sean to kill Eric for thirteen-thousand dollars, and Sean does the job.... but then, Ray refuses to pay the money he owes, and demands that Sean get out of town. Not wanting to lose out on the cash he's owed, he refuses, and is met with a threat on his life; however, Sean was too smart for all that, and had hidden away some damaging evidence against Duke and Ray, which will be sent to the cops in the event of his death. Ray comes up with a plan to beat Sean to within an inch of his life and give him permanent brain damage, so that he'll be unable to remember any of this and won't be able to snitch.... however, their plans backfire, and Sean is out for revenge on the people who ripped him off.
This movie was beyond excellent, highly enjoyable. The storyline flows along very nicely, and although there is a good amount of gore and death, it's not just another typical one-after-another body count experience; there's an actual storyline setup behind all this, and it works out great. The story really does a good job at showing Sean's slow transformation from a normal guy, to a demented psycho, and finally into a calm, collected guy who found his place in life... that of an exterminator. Then, there's quite a few shocking twists thrown into the mix which you won't see coming at all, but when you do see them, they make perfect sense; they're not just some stupid twists thrown in purely for shock value, they genuinely fit in with the rest of the storyline.
The cast that plays out the roles in this movie are also great at what they do; Chris McKenna plays Sean, and although this was his first role in any type of movie, he came out looking like a seasoned stage-veteran. His line-delivery, his facial expressions, everything about him just came off wonderfully, and he really made the movie that much better with his presence. George Wendt plays the role of Duke, and once again, comes off great in his role. His job at playing the ruthless and cocky asshole was done to perfection, and I don't think too many people could have done a better job with this role in this film.... it seems like it was written especially for him. Daniel Baldwin plays the head-honcho Ray, and although his on-screen time is a bit short considering he's the main villain, he still plays things up to perfection when he does make an appearance. I'm not normally a fan of his work, but damned if he didn't impress me with this performance. There's a few other characters in the movie who also do nicely in their roles, but revealing who they are would take a bit of the surprise out of the film, so I'll leave it at that.
Finally, we have the effects used in the film. The method that Ray used to beat Sean down with was quite cruel, and was pretty painful to watch. It was definitely original, don't think I've seen it used in any other film, and came off looking very realistic and very painful. When we see the aftermath of the beating with Sean's face having been beaten to a pulp, there's not much that it can be compared to in terms of quality. The makeup guys for this film definitely deserve a lot of credit for their work here, as everything was done so marvelously. There's a fair number of other kills and beatings shown here which are just as good in quality, but it goes back to the spoiler thing... if I mention them, you'll know what to expect, and it'll ruin the surprise factor a bit.
Overall, a highly enjoyable film that I'd recommend to just about anyone. There's really no flaws to be found here; the storyline is as solid as it gets, it moves along nicely and never gets boring, the cast is great, and the camera-work is superb. Do whatever it takes to get a copy of this film, it's that damned good. 10/10.
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#1:
crucibelle
- added August 2, 2004 at 4:51pm
For the women: this movie also has male frontal
nudity... woohaa!
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#2:
Christopher
- added August 27, 2004 at 3:40pm
If he takes a piss, I want to know what fucking
color it is.
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#3:
Sho
- added September 29, 2004 at 1:55am
If you didn't like Cheers you'll at least have one
good moment to leave this movie with.
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#4:
Bluesummers
- added May 10, 2005 at 5:43am
WOW. This freaking movie smacked me upside the
head. Not with a golf club, but hey, close enough.
A fucked up film where everything
goes wrong, and when it starts to go right,
everything goes straight to shit again. What can I
say that hasn't already been said? Uh, if you hate
Baldwins, go for it. If you want to see a really,
really, really hot woman who will never give you
the time of day get naked and get laid, this is
for you.
If you want to see what a good
acid trip revenge fest would look like, go for it,
too. How's that?
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#5:
Ginose
- added December 20, 2006 at 11:56pm
This is, without a doubt, my favorite Stuart
Gordon film. And being as big a fan of his
Lovecraft adaptations as I am, this is saying
alot. 10/10... The acting is what really composed
this movie for me.
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