The Poison Rose

This film tells the story of a private investigator who goes back to his hometown to investigate a case.

The story is actually quite engaging and suspenseful. The fear of the king of the small town is palpable. It is much better than the rating suggests. It's not that bad at all.

Starring an impressive cast including John Travolta, Morgan Freeman, Famke Janssen, Brendan Fraser, and Robert Patrick. This want a be film noir tries too hard with its more wordy than usual voice over of John Travolta and the efforts to make this movie into some sort of Maltese Falcon (1941), The Long Goodbye (1973), China Town (1974), Fargo (1996), L. A. Confidential (1997), Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), or Gone Baby Gone (2007). The script has too much thrown into the plot along with unconvincing gunfights. Instead a simplified script that allowed the actors to really shine would have been much better. Oddly enough Brendan Fraser, the Doc, gets the best character from which to show off his out of character star persona. The Poison Rose starts to show promise a third of the way in but then sort of collapses under its own weight to a more ambivalent but cliché ending. A more thoughtful script would have greater improved the movie and performances.

Despite several clunky scenes and some predictability in the storyline, it was an entertaining 2 hours, thanks in part to Brendan Fraser's hysterical performance and classic Morgan Freeman. John Travolta could use a few pointers on his southern-drawal, but he's still fun to watch. The slow, dim noir feel works, but who wouldnt recognize the fountain and gorgeous homes as Savannah not Galvaston. Overall worth a date night if looking alternative to the canned showboat superhero movies and shallow violent films with limited vocabularies.

This is possibly the worst film I've seen in 2019 thus far. Who's idea to try and attempt a noir style film with this cast is beyond me. It fails on all fronts! Right from the get go with it's poor editing and cliche'd filled madness it's a no brainer the film needs to go in the nearest bin!

Big fan of noir so maybe that also helped in my vote! Avoid at all costs

It's rated only a 4.6, but in my opinion, it's better than that. It's not great, but I love film noir and this was a pretty good one. I like how John Travolta narrated throughout the movie, like a classic film noir. I liked the steamy, Southern atmosphere and the plot twists & turns. It had a star-studded cast and they all did a very good job. I liked that John Travolta's real life daughter had a role in this movie and the scenes between the two of them were very sweet & tender. I liked the slow, sensual pace of the movie, which is realistic for us Southerners. We don't rush for anything. Lol And I loved the music in the film, especially that seductive trumpet tune which played during the end credits. This movie just oozed steamy, Southern flavor and the acting was good by all involved. Like I said, not great, but if you like classic film noir with a sultry Southern feeling (I certainly do) then you'll like this film. Give it a try, who knows? You might love it as much as I did. I gave it a 6, but would've given it a 6.5 if I could have.