Feeling Minnesota

Watching this movie on running trait in all the characters stood out, their quirkiness. The strange slightly surreal and offbeat tone of the film was quite reminiscent of Tarantino's work. I loved this film, and thought the little laughs hidden in the film made me like it. I watched this with a couple of friends, they too liked it, but we each noticed and laughed at different things.

I also loved the constant twists and turns and changes to the dynamic of the story. It starts out as Freddy paying back a debt but changes into an affair on the road, then finding some stashed money, hiding from the cops, then hiding a murder and so on. Oddly despite all of these twists and turns I never got lost but was glued to my screen figuring out who's with who and who's looking out for who.

The fights between the two brothers, Sam (Vince D'Onofrio) and Jjax(Keanu Reeves) are some of the funniest things i have ever seen on screen. Reeves put in a good performance as a bumbling crook and D'Onofrio carries himself well as his childish brother. The ever angelic Diaz puts in a good show too. Lindo and Akroyd raised a few smiles too.

Don't pay any attention to the bad reviews here. They were just people looking for a ho-hum romantic comedy when instead they got a witty dark comedy.(My kind of film) 3.75/5

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.

At first, I thought the script itself was mean-spirited and seemingly pointless. However, the movie in its entirety is very effective as a window into the lives of these rotten characters. The actors are the integral component in this movie; each and every one of them is so totally believable that I am still disgusted when I think of the film. I can't think of a single other movie that makes me appreciate it for the ability to draw me in in such a negative manner. I can't see this kind of film being done again, however. I think modern movie audiences come for the spectacle. With this movie, however, they are confronted with the same mediocre, selfish people that probably live in their respective neighborhoods.

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.

I really liked this movie. It reminded me of the movie "Fargo." There were enough twists and turns mixed in with the goofball depiction of the characters to keep me interested. I thought the acting was good enough to make the characters surreal rather than stupid. This is a movie worth watching repeatedly. As usual, Keanu Reeves does a great job with his character from beginning to end in a spontaneous fashion as the situation is very fluid.