Spanish Judges

Lillard's performance was similar to that in "The Curve". Which is also a really good movie if you like plot twists. D'Onofrio gave a perfect performance and Mars Girl is the cutest comic relief. Bottom line. I was very happy with the movie. I was excited up until the end when it took a very ...different turn, even then, I want to see it again. I am curious to see what extras, behind-the-scenes kinda stuff they have on the DVD. Anyways, 2 hours alone in the dark with Lillard and D'Onofrio is never a waste of time.

Two aspects of this movie had the chance to make it a good flick, the psychos in the gang, and the plot twists, mostly betrayals. But it gets bogged down in a lot of banter, and the pace gets too slow, not as slow as "High Art", but close. There is also a little too much over-acting, sort of like a high school play. The beginning sets things up fairly well, and the ending has all the plot twists, but you have to bear with the middle scenes. The psychos were well thought out, but not well executed, rather shallowly done. Better caper/heist flicks to rent would be Phoenix, Route 9, or Judas Kiss, and a better psycho movie would be In Dreams, but it might be worth a couple bucks if you don't get your hopes up too high. -Bob

I thought this movie did an excellent job of showing just how unpredictable love can be. It was a tale of treachery and manipulation gone wrong and the consequences that must be paid.

The plot kept one guessing what would happen next and was full of surprises.

The stranger Jack (Matthew Lillard) arrives in the studio of the crook collector of antiques Max (Vincent D'Onofrio) and tells his ambitious companion and specialist in poisons Jamie (Valeria Golino) that he is Jack's brother. Jamie does not buy his story, dominates Jack and ties him up to a chair. When Max arrives, Jack proposes US$ 100,000.00 for each one to protect him in a negotiation of the antiques "Spanish Judges" with a wealthy and dangerous collector. Max invites his stupid acquaintance Piece (Mark Boone Junior), who comes with his retarded girlfriend that believes she is from Mars, to compose the backup team. However, Jack double-crosses the collector and then he intrigues Jack, Jamie and Piece.

The low budget "Spanish Judges" is a movie with a reasonable screenplay with an awful conclusion that wastes a good cast. Valeria Golino is astonishingly beautiful but together with the good actor Vincent D'Onofrio, they are not able to save the stupid story. Further, the scenes that are supposed to be funny unfortunately do not work, and actually they are silly and not funny. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Tudo Por Dinheiro" ("All For Money")

Im a huge M Lillard fan that's why I ended up watching this movie. Honestly I doubt that if he wasn't in the movie i would of enjoyed it as much or even watched it but once I did watch it realize the story was pretty decent. A bad ending I must say but I did see it coming. It's a low budget movie and some of the actors weren't really good but all in all I rated this movie 7/10.

The suspense of wondering what Lillard was actually up to was what really keeped me interested in this movie.

Its a good rental!

7/10