Crimewave (Ola de crímenes... ola de risas)

"Crimewave" is a bizarre film, written by the Coen Brothers and directed by Sam Raimi. The plot is just strange... two criminals kill the owners of an alarm company and then begin killing the witnesses to the crime. Done in slapstick comedy style...

This film has Sam Raimi written all over it. His crazy zoom camera shots, the inclusion of Bruce Campbell as "the heel"... and the very over-the-top silliness. The only other time the Coens really tread this path was with "The Hudsucker Proxy" (which is, in all fairness, the better film)... and that, too, had Raimi's involvement.

I suggest this film is worth seeing. While not the Coens' best, not Raimi's best, it's an interesting little film, bizarre, and a good showcase of early work from those involved.

When I first saw this film, I neither knew nor cared who the Coen Brothers or Sam Raimi were.

Probably a good thing, really. I now identify the goofy, cartoonish elements with 'Raising Arizona' and the violence with 'Bottom' or 'Itchy & Scratchy', but I do remember laughing like a drain at this strangely unhinged melodrama.

The rodent-like Brion James and the brutish Paul L.Smith are excellent slapstick hoods, Louise Lasser has a brittle classic glamour and Reed Birney (who I've never seen in anything else) is the wide-eyed, hopelessly romantic loser who would be totally out of his depth in a puddle, let alone the troubles that come to him in this story.

Being a Sam Raimi film, Bruce Campbell is present, in a splendidly oily performance as a total heel. According to one of Bruce's books, making the film was a tough job for various reasons, but the result, while not a classic, is definitely worth your time.

I went through a whole lot of effort to finally see "Crimewave" (it's incredibly hard to find), but I can't help feeling a little bit unsatisfied with the result. Maybe it's only natural that it doesn't live up to high expectations, since Sam Raime had to deliver a follow-up to his downright brilliant "The Evil Dead" and that's much easier said than done. The screenplay, written by the gifted Coen brothers who just finished their dazzling debut "Blood Simple" the previous year, is overly hectic and far too absurd to summarize. I'm not even sure if this can be called a movie, as it feel more like a series of slapstick gags and insane sketches linked together by the ultra-thin premise of two professional exterminators gone berserk. Crush and Coddish are a couple of criminally insane lunies who wipe out more than just rodents, but eventually meet their equal in the nerdy bell-boy of a building complex. Some of the grotesque comedy sequences are hysterical (the slamming doors, the dance contest...) while others completely miss the mark (the whole car chase finale). The acting is tremendously over the top – what else did you expect in a light-headed project such as this? - and it looks like the entire B-cast never had this much fun in their whole lives. They're happy...we're happy, I guess.

"Crimewave" is especially worth a peek in case you're a member of the Bruce Campbell fan-club. Evil Dead's Ash steals the show as slick and obnoxious womanizer Renaldo.

This movie is SO cartoony it is painful to watch, and I AM a fan of Raimi, Campbell and the Coens. The bad guys' dubbed voices are so annoying I considered just turning it off, which I NEVER do. Campbell was the only decent thing about this movie, and he has a relatively small role. If you are considering seeing this movie, just read the memorable quotes section of this website instead.

The first of two cinematic collaborations between Sam Raimi and the Coen brothers ("The Hudsucker Proxy," on which Raimi was Second Unit Director, is the other), this hilarious movie could have, SHOULD have, been a lot funnier. The story behind why it ISN'T is just as wacky as the flick itself:

After the unexpected success of "Evil Dead" in 1982-'83, Embassy Pictures, which had released "Escape From New York," among others, contacted the young Sam Raimi about possibly directing a comedy written by two up-and-comers named Joel and Ethan Coen. Raimi read the riotous script and was eager to put it on film, keeping in close contact with the Coens so he could capture the zany spirit of the script intact. Operating on an extremely tight budget, and with constant interference from the studio, "The XYZ Murders" (the film's original title) was finished sometime in 1984 -- and promptly shelved. Never liking or understanding the humor of the movie, the executives at Embassy (being pressured to find a hit because the studio was floundering) told Raimi, "No, this is another one of your CULT movies, we don't WANT that." (These are not, by the way, my words; this is all from an interview in "Fangoria" Sam Raimi did in 1985 or '86. **EDIT 2018: the interview is in issue #64, 1987, page 33**) So, the studio, trying to keep afloat, re-edited the final cut of the movie, releasing it as "Crimewave." It did not, of course, work, as Embassy Pictures went bankrupt that same year, but not because of this film -- Embassy was finished long before they released this, actually.

If there was some way Raimi and the Coens could, I wish they would go back to this movie and either remake it or re-release it in its intended form. "Crimewave" was good, but you could tell it had been butchered (which gave it its uneven tone). In the "Fangoria" interview, Raimi confessed he regretted the way "The XYZ Murders" turned out -- so why not re-do it now that he can probably do anything he wants (thanks to the "Spider-Man" series)?

What a shame that a struggling movie studio took a great, unique, funny movie and turned it into a curiosity. I'm sure, as we all know, THAT never happens anymore.