The Quickie

THE QUICKIE (1 outta 5 stars)

Pretty poor movie... an old-as-the-hills story about a high-ranking gangster who wants to quit, passing on his empire to his inept son. Of course, it's not going to be easy for someone in that line or work to just quit... so a contract is put out on his life. After throwing a big party an exterminator (Jennifer Jason Leigh, who I guess is *never* going to act in anything other than TV movies or low budget direct-to-video trash ever again) is called to the scene. Our "hero" makes a pass at her... offering her big money for a "quickie"... she turns down his offer, even though she needs the money... but winds up staying overnight anyway... even after being brutally harassed by the overzealous son who thinks she was sent to kill his father. Ugh. The story just goes on and on... you can see every "twist" and "turn" coming a mile away. Weird soundtrack by some group called "The Tiger Lillies" will drive most people nuts... but I thought there was one kind of cool track towards the end. Or maybe I was just excited because I could tell that the movie was almost over? Jennifer, Jennifer, Jennifer... what the hell happened to you?

"The Quickie" tells of a decadent Russian mob family who lives in Malibu and...well, frankly, this awful attempt at drama isn't worthy of commentary.

Jason Leigh introduces herself to Mr. Mob-guy as being from "Pacific Exterminators" with huge letters in plain sight on her back which say "West Coast Exterminators". Eventually the mob-guys get suspicious because she was exterminating in a bedroom. (duh).

In another scene Mr. Mobguy plays Russian roulette giving a hooker $4000 to bet whether he'll live or die. She has 5 chances out of 6 of keeping the money if she bets "live". Well, she bets "die". (double duh) Later she complains it wasn't fair and wants to play again. (Triple duh).

The list of flaws just goes on and on while this intelligence insulting film stinks and sinks in a quagmire of lousy music, mediocre camera work, poor direction, boring story, etc. Pass on this loser. (D)

Note - The barebones DVD which I rented had no English same language subtitles or closed captions.

This is not a bad movie. Actually it is magnificent. I was searching for it for 4 years I guess and I finally got it. This movie, of course, can't be understood by Americans :)). So, dear potential viewer, don't believe comments made from US :). Don't watch the mob boss. Watch a guy (Russian guy, if you wish) who was gambling big. That is what the movie is about. About beauty and gambling for choices of the great thing called life. Mob factor is just an additional detail... just like in Godfather. That is not the main point of the movie. I agree that direction and actors (not the things they were supposed to do, but actors themselves) could be different (except Mashkov, he did well as always), but it doesn't shadow the whole movie.

After only a few minutes, I could measure the influence that THE GODFATHER had on this mobster family drama topic. It is not bad and rather unusual to show Russian mobster in the US without too many clichés. The director and male lead are Russians and that helps of course to make it believable. Jennifer Jason Leigh brings her share to this crime drama flick; maybe more drama than crime though.

I saw this movie on the movie channel and unfortunately missed the first few minutes of the film but found the rest of it intriguing. None of it made any sense, of course but I found myself unable to turn it off. The whole thing had a dreamlike quality to me. What the heck was the bug lady doing in this film, anyway? Was the lead guy a mob boss or a tap dancer turned to crime in order to make a living?

In spite of the shortcomings, I really liked the soundtrack. Especially haunting were the songs by the Tiger Lillies.

My advice is to forget the movie and buy the soundtrack (if you can find it anywhere - which I have not been able to do).