2hotFeature
one of my absolute favorites!
Konterr
Brilliant and touching
Brendon Jones
It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.
Robert J. Maxwell
You can't help but like movies about serial killers of little girls. They're so evil. There is no ambiguity whatever, no room for self doubt, no reason for reflection. They're the Osama bin Ladens of the criminal world. Even imprisoned murderers feel superior to child molesters and killers. Well, after all, THEY have to have somebody to look down on too.This Canadian production gives us Dennis Hopper and Frederick Forest as two detectives who are left only 48 hours to find the serial murderer. If they don't get the job done, the mayor's major investment in some property will be ruined and she'll be out of office. The mayor, however, is involved with some highly juiced Irish crooks, including Tom McCamus, and she puts the crooks on the tail of the serial murderer too because the killings are upsetting her apple cart. Tom McCamus has a great face for the movies. (He was an incestuous Dad in "The Sweet Hereafter".) And you can't beat him name, "Son of Camus." Unfortunately his acting here is about at the level of everyone else's -- strictly utilitarian. Dennis Hopper tries to play it straight, really he does. But underneath the professional cop and the flawed father we still sense the demon. I've always liked Frederick Forest. I don't think he's ever made it possible for a viewer to forget he's acting, but he looks great with his puffy eyes and louche ponytail. He looked even better as Dashiel Hammett. Not to put any of these performers down. Their acting doesn't stand out as poor because no one's stands out as particularly good. Leslie Hope seems to bring a kind of blur to whatever part of the screen she occupies. (Leslie Hope? Isn't that Bob Hope's real name? Maybe not.) The script is generic and not especially bad. The direction is efficient. The photography is really quite good. The colors are cool but appropriately so. And the lighting is as it should be -- solid black shadows where they are called for, and naturalistic lighting elsewhere. They didn't catch The X-File syndrome and throw us a lot of flashlight beams poking about in perpetual gloom. There's what I guess could be called an average chase through some newly constructed sewer at the climax.In first explaining how the sewer works to the investigators, the manager goes through his practiced tour -- the street runoff comes in here and is congealed with the solid waste, then it's processed in that unit over there, then the solid waste is emulsified and extracted by the Nakatomi Solid Waste Extractor, the individual E. coli are vasectomized, the cholera vibrios receive twelve-step counseling, the chloroform and bacteriocidal material are added over there, diluted with Toxico Smegmaphage, fractionally distilled, tested on experimental groups drawn from third-world prisons, and then its flushed out into the reservoir. "And that's what we drink?" asks a greenish Frederick Forest.It reminds me a little of Fritz Lang's "M" without any of the pathos.
yashualie
the lowest score possible is one star? that's a shame. really, i'm going to lobby IMDb for a "zero stars" option. to give this film even a single star is giving WAY too much. am i the only one who noticed the microphones dangling over hopper's head at the station? and the acting, or should i say the lack thereof? apparently talent wasn't a factor when the casting director came to town. my little sister's elementary school talent show provides greater range and depth of emotion. and those fake irish accents were like nails on a chalk board. the only thing that could have made this movie worse would have been...oh, wait, no,no, it's already as bad as it can get.
DrDevience
***Possible Plot Spoilers***I adore Dennis Hopper. I question why he accepted the role of a police detective in 2000's The Spreading Ground. This movie flat out sucks and I'm about to tell you why.This is about a small town which is about to get a contract for a sports arena. One hitch: there's a killer on the loose and that is bad for business. The Mayor makes a deal with the Irish Mob to find the killer and make sure he never makes it to court. Det. Ed Delongpre has other plans. He wants this guy caught too, but he's on the level and believes in the system. He wants to see the system do it's job.That could have been pretty good. It could have been riveting. It was horrible. First, they label this guy a Serial Killer. Err no. There are specific criteria and none of it fits here. The bad guy has killed 5 kids the first day, and I think it was 2 the second day. This entire movie spans like a 48 hour time period.... Hardly Serial Killer action. I don't care what warped motives they give him in the end, Serial Killers do their deed over a long time span. They do not just all of a sudden kill 7 kids in two days. That's a Spree.Ok that irritant aside, the acting was atrocious. The only name here was Hopper, and he's the only one who came even close to pulling off his part. Unfortunately, he's kinda type-cast to me and I think he does psycho parts much, much better. This just wasn't a good vehicle for Hopper. It didn't allow him to do what he does best, which is to act all creepy. It's not that he did bad, it's that I've seen him do so much better.
The Irish Mob guy, Johnny Gault (Tom McCamus - Long Day's Journey Into Night), who is in charge of their investigation is just over the top stiff. Contradiction? Not really. He is trying to play the cold, hard kinda guy and he does that to the point that the character is just wooden. Boring to the max. He didn't scare me. He didn't inspire any emotion at all except boredom. I cannot tell you how many times I checked to see how much longer it was til the end of this movie.The other thing about this is that it had the feel of a made-for-TV movie. You know what I mean. The poor production values, low budget, re-use of scenes to save costs. Just eh. Yanno? But, I feel like comparing this to those is an insult to those.Derek Vanlint was both the Director and Cinematographer on this project. He bit off more than he could chew. I can't help feeling that Hopper must have took this role as a personal favor to a friend. That's the only rational I can come up with. This was Vanlint's first job as Director, third as cinematographer. Hopefully this was a learning experience for him.
I won't ruin the ending in case you do decide to torture yourself with this one, but I do want to say that they all dropped the ball here...even Hopper. In a scene that should have been emotionally gut-wrenching for the detective, it was just..well.. blah. I didn't see any of the angst at all that would accompany the total gear-change this guy made. Very disappointing.This 100 grueling minutes long and Rated R for violence and language. No kid under 13 is going to have any interest whatsoever in watching this, so no worries there. It's not suitable for anyone anyway. heh.
Skip this one. You'll thank me later.
gvadimsky
Derek VanLint has done an outstanding job with this film. As I watched it, I imagined that either he had immense control over his director of photography or that he WAS one and the same, aside from being the overall film director. I was right. His eye for making a scene as intense as possible, and for finding what not to SAY, but what to SHOW, is amazing! Anyone who didn't enjoy this needs to re-evaluate just how many explosions or car chases they still need to see in their lifetime. This film does not rely on the overused junk that "mass appeal" films can't seem to do without. Also, Dennis Hopper is great in a role completely against typecasting! Frederic Forrest seems strained and pained as the overworked and overtired sidekick detective.
