Jeu mortel

Following in the footsteps of 'Seven', yet another copycat psycho thriller, this time with famous folk being bumped off as part of a game played over the Internet. Without the two leads this really would deserve the bargain bin, Hopper and Zimbalist at least keep their characters interesting. Which is more than can be said for everyone else. Would've been nice to have had some real celeb cameos to be killed off, but maybe they thought that was tempting fate!

Disappointing police drama concerning the challenge between an old detective (Hooper) and a weird and uncanny serial killer. Tired formula with a plot that goes along in a peasant pace with no real catch or interesting situations and characters. I give this a 3 (three).

The storyline of this movie had the potential to be good and intriguing, however the writer massacred it. The characters' motivations where sketchy and overacted, even by the usually charismatic Dennis Hopper. Some of the lines had me laughing when it was obviously meant to be suspensful, serious, or cathartic.

Overall, it is worth a watch for a Dennis Hopper fan. He saves this otherwise sinking ship.

O.K. Here is what happened. I went to the VIDEO STORE to rent THE TAO of STEVE and did not look carefully at the DVD case and ended up renting this stinker of a flick instead. Now don't get me wrong, this film had potential. Dennis Hopper is always at least tolerable or better, and is not bad here. The problem was the poorly explained plot, the numerous bad performances, and the director's insistence on using every police cliche going. The film uses the venetian blind shadows in just about every scene. I really cannot express the multitude of reasons no one should see this. Seems to me it went straight to video for a reason.

I don't really have strong feelings about the movie. I paid $1.00 for the DVD at WalMart and I think I got my money's worth. I watch a lot of movies and am surprised I had never seen this one. Dennis Hopper is dependable in most any role and this one was no exception. The story was OK, but the ending was no great surprise. What was surprising was the quality of the video. I have bought cheap DVDs before and they varied from average to crummy. This one was sharp and had good color throughout. No extras, of course, like director's comments, subtitles or other goodies, but the movie ran full length without any gaps or pixelating and with decent enough sound. A pleasant surprise.