L'amour ou la mort

When I first saw the trailer to this movie on some other action DVD, I thought, "You must be kidding me. This has got to be the worst straight-to-video HK-action rip-off ever made." But after watching the first few minutes of it on cable, I knew the trailer was all wrong. They'd focused on all the wrong elements. I found "Love and a Bullet" to be something of a black "Snatch"-type movie (no jokes, now), very tongue-in-cheek and enjoyably self-referential. The final battle, as silly as it was, was easier to swallow after the movie's setup. After all, it's not a straight gangsta-action movie; it's more of a black comedy. In both senses of the word. Definitely worth the 90-minute investment.

This movie was much better than I expected!

I thought the story was very smart and original. Some good twists and turns.

The action scenes were exciting, original and very, very cool. A bit more gory than I expected.

The acting was pretty good. Especially since Treach is a rapper and sometimes there not very good.

It was a nice blend of comedy and action. The jokes were very good. It's no wonder it was written and directed by Ben Ramsey, who did The Big Hit.

Does anyone else think Treach sounds like Ice T, especially when narrating.

Overall I thought it was a funny, exciting, original and very, very cool movie.

Love and a Bullet is a film that I watched and really don't know how to express my feelings towards it. By the cover you would think the film would be full of action it's not. But the film does have some decent acting and a likeable lead performance in Treach. If you just wanna waste about 90 min then check this out.

Love and a Bullet is a confused movie. At times it seems like a comedy with the use of the MF word more times in a sentence than any other word. But other times with its blood and violence it want to be a film trying to shock. All the while filled with philosophy that doesn't make sense to anyone and they note it. As love story starts to form, you feel small moments. You feel for Bishop on thanksgiving but then it becomes a comedy of errors again. This movie could have been better if it decided what it was before it decided who should die.

Kantz and Ramsey also put together "The Big Hit", which I disliked so much, I demanded my money back from the video store. But I admit that there is something appealing about this one.

The film is an attempt to do comic noir, and is definitely of a flavor similar to that of Tarantino's films and of the British neo-noir.

The problem such films have is one of bad taste - it's difficult to know when killing and hurting people can be made amusing, and when it just hurts and laughing at it is stepping close to something profoundly unhealthy.

However, "Love and a Bullet" only crosses that line a couple of times; and I think much of the appeal of the film comes out of the performance of Treach, who is right on the money throughout. Some of the dialog is over much, and more could have been done with less - although I admit that for a film put together for half-a-million in 2002, this really looks well-made. But I really mean less in the story and in the dialog, which goes over the top once too often to suit me.

But on the whole, an entertaining Post-Modern crime comedy of the 'outre' variety.