Thinner

King adapted movies either work or they don't. Horror type flicks are very hard to do well. This did have a made-for-TV feel about it similar to other King flicks, but imo, the reason this was acceptable was in large part due to the acting and casting of Robert John Burke. Can you imagine seeing this man walk his dog at night? He seems outside the human race somehow…I guess that's why they choose acting as a profession. He so not normal. His voice quality was over the top, Simpson-esq in quality like in a cartoon…but that worked here.

Joe Mantegna and Michael Constantine were excellent. As stated previously, Kari Wuhrer is smokin' hot. Too bad she looks exactly like that Doritos girl who is on a UON stupid sitcom now. I guess you can't have two Doritos girls in Hollyweird.

You gotta love IMDb.com to look up all the work these actors have done. I knew I saw Burke and Wuhrer's face before but couldn't place them. I thought Michael Constantine was James Coco…but only tonight I saw Constantine in The Hustler w/Paul Newman, one of his first roles. IMDb confirmed this.

Even found out Joe's wife owns a pizza place in Burbank...need to stop by.

...for a King work: they've always had a mixed track record. Generally this one is a tribute to the F/X wizardry as Robert John Burke goes through multiple transformations. That in itself is pretty horrifying. Most of the King subtleties have been sucked out of it, but what's new? It's basically a decent supernatural thriller. There is a slow, relentless horror to the whole thing, which doesn't rely on huge "jump out of the closet" shocks (although there are a few of those). Basically a horror movie for adults.

Billy Halleck (Robert John Burke) hits an old gypsy woman with his car, and with the help of his lawyer and judge friends gets away without even a traffic fine. Unfortunately for him, he cannot use legal maneuvers to get the gypsy curse off of him!

Stephen King has one of the worst track records for film adaptations. For every great film (Green Mile, Shawshank Redemption, Shining) there are some real piles of rubbish. And any number of films in between. This one, luckily, is closer to the good end. Some have pooh-poohed it, but I found it pretty enjoyable.

Beyond the main story, which was average, the film comes alive due to Joe Mantegna's portrayal of Richie Ginelli. Mantegna, who you may know from "Criminal Minds" or as the voice of Fat Tony from "The Simpsons", is pretty great as violence incarnate. When he unleashes his vengeance on the gypsies, you almost have to feel bad for them, as you admire his tenacious bloodlust.

I have heard people complain about the ending, which apparently varies from the novel. I have also heard that the novel has more intricate subtleties that the movie overlooked. I do not have the novel, so I cannot comment on that, beyond saying that I really enjoyed the ending. I can't say what it is, but I found it very appropriate.

Burke's Clint Eastwood voice may be a bit dramatic, but I did not mind... oh, and Kari Wuhrer appears, as well... though does little more than provide a dash of sex appeal.

Look, I was entertained for 90 minutes, long enough for a few brewskies and some popcorn, and that's all I asked of it. It's not a masterpiece. It's a simple story, simple characters... but why would you expect anything else? Just look at the DVD cover for f***'s sake. I'm baffled by the people who come on this movie's forum and are surprised by what a bad movie it was. Uh yeah, don't get me wrong, it's a RIDICULOUSLY stupid movie, but that's pretty much what I was looking for when I rented it.

Had I gone into this movie without any former expectations, I would have given it 5 stars overall. The acting was way over the top, the directing not so great, and the writing wasn't spectacular either. However, the story was moderately clever, and it gets points for keeping a fairly tongue-in-cheek humor about it; at no point did I feel like it was trying to take itself seriously. I give it another star based entirely off the strength of it's makeup effects (yes, they're that good, considering it was made in a time before digital makeup).

Finally, I give it 7 stars, simply because it met my expectations as a cheesy, over-the-top, horror romp, and I would've expected nothing less from "Stephen King's Thinner".

This engaging adaptation of the novel, which Stephen King wrote under his Richard Bachman pseudonym, stars the under-rated Robert John Burke ("RoboCop 3") as Billy Halleck. Billy is a lawyer in Maine who happens to be grossly overweight. After he accidentally runs down an elderly Gypsy woman, his judge (John Horton, "The Shawshank Redemption") and police chief (Daniel von Bargen, "O Brother, Where Art Thou?") friends conspire to help Billy avoid any punishment. This infuriates the old womans' even more ancient father (Michael Constantine, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"), who places one of those old-fashioned Gypsy curses on Billy. Stroking Billy's cheek, he utters one word: "Thinner". Soon, Billy is rapidly losing weight, which he enjoys at first, until he realizes that he really is going to waste away to nothing unless something is done.

Just personally speaking, this viewer has a blast with this particular King story. Yes, it's unrelentingly downbeat, but I didn't mind that so much. And it's true: other than Billy's daughter Linda (Bethany Joy Lenz, 'Pearson'), there isn't a single character in the story that's particularly sympathetic. Still, this viewer found it refreshing that so many of the characters here turn out to be such a-holes. It's a highly entertaining tale, well told by co-screenwriter and director Tom Holland ("Fright Night", "Child's Play"). And it's fortunately not completely without a sense of humor, although the humor tends towards the dark.

There's wonderful music by Daniel Licht, but the real marvel of the movie is the astonishing, convincing makeup effects (supervised by Oscar winner Greg Cannom) that transform the thin Burke into an obese man. There's also a gem of a supporting performance by the always entertaining Joe Mantegna ('Criminal Minds') as a mafia man whom Billy had successfully defended in court. Therefore, the mobster feels indebted to the lawyer, and is more than willing to help Billy in his quest to convince the ancient Gypsy to remove the curse. The supporting cast is solid right down the line, with Lucinda Jenney ("Thelma & Louise") as Billy's possibly unfaithful wife (the script tries to leave this aspect as ambiguous as possible), Sam Freed ('Kate & Allie') as a doctor friend, the intoxicatingly sexy Kari Wuhrer ("Eight Legged Freaks") as Constantines' great granddaughter, Elizabeth Franz ("School Ties") in a bravura turn as the judges' distraught wife, and Peter Maloney ("The Thing") as an information provider. Director Hollands' son Josh plays Frank Spurton; King has his usual cameo (playing a pharmacist). What is a real laugh is the fact that actress Irma St. Paule ("Twelve Monkeys"), as the accident victim, actually looks OLDER than Constantine!

Good gloomy fun, but it won't be to all "tastes", especially the ending.

Eight out of 10.