Le tueur des nuits de noces

...he has to be a better writer than this movie portrayed.

The actors and actresses were excellent. Especially noteworthy, as has already been mentioned, were Tracy Pollen and Robert Patrick.

But...by the time I got to the end of this movie, I was totally confused. Who did what/why/when/how?? I got what the final motive was supposed to be, but that was about all.

And could someone explain to me the meaning of the Russian roulette scene?

I guess I need to get one of Patterson's books to read before I sit through another Patterson adaptation. Usually seeing a good made-for-TV movie makes me want to go buy the writer's work for enjoyment. In this case, I feel the need to go read this book so I can understand what I just spent the last 2+ hours watching. I'm not so much intrigued as annoyed.

Five stars out of ten for casting. Nothing for storyline. What I got most from this movie was a frustrating headache...

My wife wanted me to get this off Netflix on a recommendation.

Immediately I had a feeling it had been a TV movie. This must have been a very tedious experience watching this weak movie with commercials! Plus it was rate R for some reason. Why if it was on network TV?

Only Robert Patrick does a reasonable job as the villain. Even the reliable Pam Grier couldn't bring much to her role as the coroner. Tracy Pollan is really a subpar actress. Only the slight plot twists made this any small reason to waste 2 and half hours viewing this. Mitch Pileggi was very credible and Gil Bellows very disappointing. Don't was any time on this movie. There are so many other good movies to rent or purchase.

To me there's really only one thing a filmmaker/writer should never ever do. They can use all sorts of little cheats and suspend the laws of physics for stylistic effect as much as they want, but when they use those same cheats to resolve the main mystery of the plot, then that's just too stupid. To avoid giving too much detail I'll use a hypothetical example: Suppose you're watching a suspense film and the heroine is up against the wall with killers all around her. They're armed, she isn't. She has no help and no way out, and the situation has been tensely evolving to this point for two hours. Then she just magically turns invisible and flies away with no explanation for how, when, or why she suddenly developed the ability to fly and turn invisible. The end. Good film? No. A terrible cheat. And 1st To Die is just that way. The plot's mystery is resolved by a sudden revelation that someone can do something that's impossible. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid.

Any idiot can write a good mystery if you don't have to explain how it worked within the laws of physics. Imagine the old "locked room mystery" where the victim has been killed in a room that has been locked from the inside, so how did the killer do it? If the answer is that the killer suddenly developed the ability to pass through brick walls without disturbing them, then it's not a very good mystery, is it?

One might actually enjoy '1ST TO DIE' as it probably makes good background chatter during a bout of house-cleaning or roof-repair.

Only half of the principal characters are well-played. Gil Bellows, Megan Gallagher and Mitch Pileggi deserve some applause for their efforts. However, the rest of the cast play their characters either over-the-top or with the enthusiasm of a grape. The scenes with Tracy Polan (shrill) and Carly Pope (tedious) are so awful as to be beyond any credibility - the worn-out dialog can only be blamed for so much. 'The Women's Murder Club' scenes are so poorly conceived, that the entire idea falls flat early on. And what can one say about Pam Grier?

The film is a full 160 minutes long, the last twenty encompassing every tiresome twist one has come to expect. A wonderful example of truly awful writing.

Okay, so I thought this movie would be interesting despite that it was made for TV. But, my God I have not seen a worse movie! The fact that it was entirely predictable throughout the entire thing made it much worse. I thought I was going to watch a movie that had plot twisters. Wrong again.

Another thing was the horrible acting! Now, I am a huge fan of Robert Patrick because of his work in the Terminator and the X-Files. But his performance greatly disappointed me. Along with another X-Files mate of his, Mitch Pileggi, who didn't do much better. Tracy Pollan definitely can pull of the not so ditzy but nevertheless dumb blonde.

I was glad when the disgustingly abrupt ending came, the final words being from one of the "girls".

"It must have been terrible." Yeah, it was terrible. Let me give you some advice. Don't waste 3 hours on this movie. It's not worth it.