Feeling Minnesota

Bottom line, this is a very funny, silly, slapstick, goofy film - but very adult, with twists and turns as the largely amoral characters grapple and use each other to get what they want. None of the characters are particularly likable, Jjaks (Reeves) seems the most put upon but he's in and out of prison and Freddie (Diaz) is a good time girl who messed with the wrong people and is just doing what she has to do to get by. It's also a sort of romantic love story although despite Reeves acting superbly and being rather cute, the chemistry between him and Diaz is lacking something. Diaz, I don't feel is acting her best and often is a somewhat monotone, as if reading lines, but they are enjoyable to watch and whilst I think she's the weakest performance she has the most difficult and emotionally exposing role and in that case I think she does well. It's the scenes with Reeves and D'Onofrio that are truly engaging in an anti-chemistry kind of way. They rub each other up the wrong way - sibling rivalry - Jjaks having had the bad end of every deal in their childhood - and in doing so provide some scarily good aggression and slapstick comedy timing genius ensues. It's a film where you have to watch closely, for some grand scale and also minutiae performances, and it can be watched over and over again for laughs and the drama. Reeves is animated and light - like Diaz, I think he suits comedy and there are plenty of funny scenes (albeit black comedy as often as not) to enjoy. Diaz is both charming and annoying - her character is understandable and relatable (possibly due to her performance making it so) but also largely without scruples and single mindedness: her dream of working in Vegas - and I like that whilst it ends satisfactorily, it's not particularly Hollywood in it's ending and it's predictable but pleasantly so. Dan Aykroyd is the hapless, stupid, love-sick, cop on the take with a very overblown Minnesota accent - or is it Canadian, or Irish? He brings more laughs, and Courtney Love in a small but nice role adds small town glamour and a stable foil for some of D'Onofrio's eccentric behaviours.

Adults only black comedy, lots of bad language, scenes of a sexual nature (though not gratuitous) and a lot of violence and aggression. The subject matter, and plot, make for a very dramatic film but it's played for laughs which makes it an enjoyable romp with all the actors giving it 100%. Amazingly this film flew under the radar of 90s cinema-going and is an unexpectedly good film that I've seen a number of times and it doesn't get old. Not a chick-flick although it may appear as such, and plenty for boys to enjoy.

Most films starring Keanu Reeves or Cameron Diaz are a safe bet for a big Hollywood blockbuster. This one stars both, yet is a rather low-profile affair which many poeple won't have heard of. Ironically, Reeves gives one of the best performances of his career because he isn't asked to play a one-dimensional man of action. Diaz is eye-opening too, as a foul-mouthed girl trapped in a dead-end existence.

The story tells of a young, aimless ex-con named Jacks Clayton (Reeves) who returns to the uninviting Minnesota town of his birth at the request of his mother (Tuesday Weld). She wants him there for the wedding of his elder brother Sam (Vincent D'Onofrio). However, when Jacks arrives he realises straight away that there's something rather fishy about the wedding. It turns out that Sam's bride Freddy (Diaz) has no desire to get married at all (she's only doing it because a nasty local gangster has bullied her into it). Before the wedding party is even over, Jacks has had sex with Freddy in the toilets; before the week is out, the pair have eloped intending to start over in Las Vegas. Suffice to say, Sam is pretty annoyed by what young Jacks has done....

Feeling Minnesota is a gritty, occasionally funny drama which benefits from its unfamiliar setting. Within its own admittedly twisted logic, the film's odd narrative works reasonably well. However, the characters are so amoral that it becomes hard to care what happens to any of them - including the supposed hero Jacks (who would make a fitting bad guy in most other pictures). The amount of coarse language is rather jarring too. You don't need to find swearing offensive to notice it, but if coarse language does bother you then it's safe to say that you'll be offended by the quantity of it in this film. The plot twists and turns in a very unpredictable manner, and makes for an interesting - if not entirely believable - experience.

I tried very hard to like this movie but unfortunately I failed. While it appears to try to be a "black comedy" it simply appears to be "black" with very little comedy attached. The performances are good for the most part, but it is really difficult to like a movie when every single character in it is so damned unlikable. I mean really, not one single character in this movie had a single redeeming characteristic. Isn;t the purpose of cinema to be our ability to relate to the characters on the screen, in this case the characters are so awful we couldn't care less if any of them lived or died. I watched it once, and then rented it again to watch it again (perhaps thinking it would grow on me the second time) but I turned it off round about the "motel blow job" scene when I really got very bored with the whole thing. Apart from the fact that the actors act their socks off in this movie there is very little to say for it. (and is it just me or does Keanu Reeves wear that same damn suede jacket in EVERY movie he is in? I mean do these movies not have wardrobe in their budget?)

This film suffers from being a hybrid between the Coen brothers and Quentin Tarantino in part. It's not violent or ironic enough to be a Joel Coen creation and not obscenity-laden or gory enough to be a Tarantino product. There is humor, however, in the bumbling of Vinny D'Onofrio's character and in Reeve's typically understated role. You get the idea the real "bad guy" in the film is the neglectful, dope-smoking mother who allows the older brother to brutalize and bully the younger. It's topped off with more goofiness with Aykroyd's Krazy Kop and Delroy Lindo's Gangsta role (I particularly liked the red hair gimmick). I missed this one when it came out and rented the video because I found the name, Feeling Minnesota, remindful of the Coen Brother's Raising Arizona. I found it very watchable and rather liked the ridiculous situations very dysfunctional people get themselves into. The only glitch seemed to be Cameron Diaz who at times seemed unsure what her character was all about. Still, there is much in this film to recommend it. I would ignore the more negative reviews found here: I've no idea what these people were expecting or wanting. Check this movie out for yourself and you decide.

If you like Keanu Reeves, Cameron Diaz, Dan Ackroyd and Vincent D'onofrio. Rent this movie. I just finished watching it and I was intrigued by it, waiting to see what would happen next. I thought Ke did a great job as did Cameron, Dan and Vincent. Not once did I regret renting it. It's all relative people.