Man Trouble

Well, I saw the movie last night and have to agree with Alex here. I think most people here expected more than just an entertaining movie. The humor is based on silly situations and conversations, and if you can't laugh about something just because it's so darn silly, you indeed won't like the humor in this movie. I can appreciate that humor from time to time, and yesterday was one of those times. I expected nothing much from this movie and it turned out good for me. And Nicholson plays it alright if you ask me (since some are of another opinion here). My opinion: a nice one for down the road, when you're out of options to do something and you just want to lay back and think about nothing...

I found this movie in the $5.50 bin of Wal-Mart and only got it because it had Jack Nicholson in it. I had extremely low expectations, which is probably why I got such a surprise--This movie is hilarious.

It has a very dry line of sarcasm running all the way through it, particularly in the off-the-wall arguments between Nicholson's character and the wife.

Taking everything literally will not help you understand the humor. You have to view every line as some sort of comeback to a previous one, and that's when you see the laughable irony in the film. It really did surprise me; I enjoyed it!

And the acting is stellar. The characters really are portrayed well. They're all very comical characters, full of flaws, which just makes them more realistic in a rather ridiculous plot which honestly could have been thrown out the window.

Personally, I would have loved to just see a film about the marriage counseling, which is only glimpsed at, between Nicholson and his wife. Some of the funniest moments are in that part of the film, but, like I said, it's dry.

Enjoy!

Bob Rafelson is a puzzling director. After his big successes with "Fiver Easy Pieces" and "The King of Marvin Gardens", Mr. Rafelson doesn't seem to come out with a film project that will take him back to his past glory. This is evident with the disastrous "Man Trouble" shown on cable recently.

The film is a mess. Jack Nicholson, an actor who has worked with the director before with better results, plays the main role of Harry Bliss a trainer of dogs without any redeeming qualities. Harry is married to an Oriental woman and is working his marital problems with a counselor. Harry gets involved with Ellen Barkin, who is being stalked. The solution is to get a German Shephard dog to protect her. She has moved to her sister's swanky home where probably the only funny scene happens. We watch Ms. Barkin working with the dog and all her commands have to be in German, otherwise the dog doesn't respond! The others in the cast are totally wasted. Beverly D'Angelo has some good moments. Michael McKean, Saul Rubineck, Henry Dean Stanton, are seen in supporting roles.

See if there is something else to watch, but don't make the same mistake we made.

I saw this movie on a second-class channel this Sunday, and I have to say that I liked it. It's just a romantic comedy, and if you keep that in mind, you will also like it. Of course, maybe Jack Nicholson is overcasted, but it proves how capable is he of doing any kind of character, in any kind of movie. It doesn't worth buying, but I think it worth the rental fee.

MAN TROUBLE has some sort of bad pedigree. It's among Jack Nicholson's lowest rated movies and according to the IMDB trivia it went in theaters and left them after only three days which is quite surprising since Nicholson at the time was an A-list actor. So I had extremely low expectations for it but when I saw it last October I found myself kinda enjoying it for what it was. Not that I loved it but still I didn't hated like most of the other users here.

Classical singer Joan Spruance (Ellen Barkin) is divorced from the conductor and one day she finds her apartment ransacked and receives threatening phone calls by a maniac. The next day she calls guard dog trainer Harry Bliss (Nicholson) that gives her a German Shepherd and after a while Harry and Joan start to feel attracted to each other only to have Redmond Layls' (Harry Dean Stanton) lawyer offer Harry some money for retrieving a manuscript where Andy Ellerman wrote a biography of the boss. Later that night Joan is assaulted by the masked maniac tho she manages to escape. After some misunderstandings between Harry and Joan she'll be saved by Harry after Eddie Revere (who was the masked maniac all the time) wanted to dump her from a hill.

I agree with the other reviewers that in some points it was dumb but still there was a lot to like. The acting by all (Nicholson, Barkin, Stanton, Saul Rubinek and Raymond Cruz) was good and I loved the first minutes where the dog was introduced. Some of the situations made me also chuckle in some points so, based on this a movie can't be that bad.

Overall, one of the lesser movies of the stars probably because it was easy for the audience bash this movie instead of seeing it for what it is. If you manage to lower your expectations you'll end up getting a kick out of it.