Knots - Liebesbande

I rented this movie the other night and was thoroughly surprised by how good it was. I'm not a real "indie" sort of guy, but I thought the story was great without being trite or falling into a lot of the traps that sometimes come with a comedy like this. The characters are well drawn and there are some real standout performances, especially from John Stamos, Paulina Porzikova, and the guy who played "Jake" - really funny! The plot covers six main characters and still manages to make perfect sense... all the while being pretty hysterical. Stamos' character has some great lines which I plan on using! All in all, great little movie.

Knots is a clever portrayal of the modern day urban relationship and love triangle genre. It is both poignant and relevant and effectively portrays a range of viewpoint and emotion relating to how people interact with each other both in and out of relationships and how people come face-to-face with their own demons. Scott Cohen and Annabeth Gish give strong performances. John Stamos is brilliant with his character portrayal of a care free womanizer (I can hands down say this is his strongest work that I have seen to date) and the rest of the cast does an overall strong job of rounding out the movie. I thought the movie was well written and directed with a crisp, thorough understanding of mood, pacing and the genre as a whole. Greg Lombardo does a masterful job of allowing the characters to evolve in a way that feels very natural and then gets out of their way allowing them to follow their own path to meaning and discovery. Overall, I think this a meaningful comedy with a strong message that shouldn't be missed.

This really took me by surprise. I was expecting fun, light fare, but ended up loving this film. Paulina Poriskouva puts in the best performance I've seen in a long time - sexy, funny, and well acted. Annabeth Gish is awesome, much like her short appearances on the West Wing. John Stamos is hilarious and much more interesting than the junk he did on full house. Tara Reid is cute and not her "bad publicity" persona.

Many films would hang themselves on the twist (which I'm not going to give away) of the film's premise, and kind of leave the movie to its own devices. The film really goes forward from the premise and develops each one of the characters completely.

Just awesome cast, very good writing, and extremely funny! Loved it.

This film is an attempt to mix an (American) Office style lead character with a watered down Woody Allen writing style. However, this attempt at dry and edgy fails due to uninspired writing and sub standard acting. It is closer to a feature length episode of 'Sex in the City', but somehow managing even less in the way of intuitive observations about relationships.

I assume women will find this film ignorant and unrealistic and men will find this incredibly dull and unable to relate to any of the one dimensional male characters, so I'm not sure who will enjoy it (but what do I know about women since I'm just a man). What is most confusing is how none of the characters managed to endear themselves to me. This is similar to any other modern romantic comedy about the difficulty of relationships, but fails to make the viewer care if any of the people end up either alone, happy, sad or dead etc. I could be missing the point, and this might be intended as a hilarious roller-coaster of a film, and not anything to do with realistic characters, but if so, it is even further from the mark the mark than I thought. One major point that only deserves a few simple words: the lead character is absolutely terrible.

The good points about this film are that the direction isn't that bad, Stamos is good, the pacing is fine and the plot had potential. This is not a horrible film, its just lacking in the most important areas that this sort of film needs to excel in to be good: believable comedy acting and precise writing.

Avoid, but not like the plague, and instead 'When Harry Met Sally' or 'The Break Up' are much better films that do something similar to this film, but better.

Knots is a funny, sexy and entertaining movie about six thirty-something characters experiencing life and love in NYC. Credit must be given to the co-writer/director, Greg Lombardo, for making this diverse group of actors a believable set of friends and lovers. John Stamos just about steals the movie. This role is clearly the precursor to his new TV series which even borrows the name "Jake" from one of the characters in Knots. Stamos' looks, charm and winning smile are used to great effect. Paulina Porizkova was a wonderful surprise. Having not seen or heard anything about her in a number of years, she is well-cast as the story's sexy catalyst. Scott Cohen and Annabeth Gish are a married couple with a very real relationship that gets played out on a number of levels. Michael Leydon Campbell is sweet as Jake, the underdog. Credit also goes to the director/producers for casting Tara Reid against type. Set primarily in Brooklyn with some action in Manhattan, the homes and offices look realistic and lived in; you feel like you could hang out there and enjoy spending time with these interesting and quirky characters. The movie is well-written; the story is moved along by a couple of unexpected twists and turns, including the ending, and the dialog has some great repartee and one-liners. A very enjoyable and worthwhile 90 minutes. Check it out.