Blackdevil: el diablo viste de negro

Did you ever see a movie where everything added up to nothing? Well that is how I felt after watching "Let the Devil Wear Black". A whole bunch of unlikable characters with little or no development, try killing each other. Jonathan Penner is good as the son seeking revenge on his uncle for murdering his father. The problem is, the film comes across as an almost incoherent series of events. There is lots of small talk, totally unrelated to the story, that constantly bogs things down. Unlike the plot description of violent killings, shocking suicides and a thrilling plot that will shake you to the core, I wound up merely shaking my head. - MERK

Jonathan Penner returns from the insane asylum to discover his father is dead, and his mother, Jacqueline Bisset is remarried to his uncle, Jamey Sheridan, who's running the properties Penner and mother own. He becomes convinced his father was murdered and that he is receiving signs from him, messages scrawled in chapstick on the mirrors in the strip club.

In short, it's Hamlet updated. It's got quite a cast with Norman Reedus, Brooke Taylor, Mary-Louise Parker, Chris Sarandon, Philip Baker Hall, and Maury Chaykin. And yet I was struck as this wended its way through the plot how uninteresting these people were. With Shakespeare's language, what have you got except a squabble over money and sex between people who are not too bright, and who express complex ideas in simple language not because that works, but because the writers can't manage anything more involved. Is a high body count enough?

A bold and worthy attempt to update Shakespeare's Hamlet by stripping the play of its dialogue, and turning it into a contemporary murder story.

Of course it isn't always successful, I suspect that no such strategy would be, since Shakespeare's language is actually more important than his plotting.

Still, the sincerity of cast and crew carry the effort a great ways. The Rozencrantz and Guildenstern sup-plot was, I thought, particularly well-handled.

I have shown this to people who say they hate Shakespeare, without telling them the connection to the bard, and they have generally found it fascinating. Perhaps this is the only way some people can "get" Shakespeare.

definitely worth a viewing.

I caught this ditty by chance and was I glad I did. It is a film written and acted suited to my tastes. Jonathan Penner was captivating within his mannerisms, gorgeous to look at and a pleasure to see him act. Plot is grand. Everything else too. I am not giving much more away, solely my two opinions, aforementioned and the last: RENT IT if you find it.

I find it mildly amusing to read the comments of self-styled critics who derive great satisfaction from their ability to string words together in a quasi-intellectual and wannabe MEANINGFUL fashion....the art-house intelligentsia. Yeah some of us other terrestrials HAVE in fact a working knowledge of HAMLET even to the point of realising that this here little number IS in fact a modernistic, though agreed, unspectacular re-working!

Who gives a flying doughnut if "shooting at night is problematical?" and/or every option available to the aspiring director in charge? Carol Reed in technologically simplistic times came up with THE THIRD MAN, a flick for which "the dark" is synonymous with "mood" and "noir." The problem with this film is not one of inappropriate filming techniques or even the unreasonably slated "script" (let him who is without sin.........etc) it is the fact that you actually have to LISTEN! The film does not sidle up to you and nuzzle your leg saying "Pick me up - aren't I cute?" The characters regrettably are simply unendearing and with all the spontaneity of those from ANOTHER WORLD.

For all that, I have seen way worse than this and despite cranially displaced assertions that barely one scene in its ninety minute run-time might be said to momentarily hold one's attention, there is in fact a film here you just might get something out of, if you TRY! It IS after all just a film, NOT a philosophical dissertation!