Michael Angel

Richard Greico can't act. He's good-looking, but he can't act. Dennis Hopper, however, CAN act and that's why I was so surprised to see him in such a bad movie. The basic premise of this film is that an art expert can use his knowledge of art and what a 'painting' tells him about its artist to help track down a killer, even with no other clues. Believable? No! This one is not worth your time.

I recently saw this movie, and I enjoyed it and would encourage others to see it. In the movie, a priest/artist (Richard Grieco) goes to Puerto Rico after he's found out that his brother who's a gay prostitute was brutally murdered. The movie also stars Dennis Hopper who plays an athiest psycho killer, a role he's all to familiar with. The supporting cast is good not great, but they add to the film nicely. The music that underlays the film is haunting voices, breaths, and church music. This is a great mystery/thriller and it's definitely worth seeing.

This movie was a mess. It had the absolute worst editing I have ever seen. It was almost like at the end of a scene the writer wanted to go to commercial, and the filmmaker added a second of black screen to fulfill the writers dream.

Under the messy direction and editing, there was a glimmer of something good. A good idea, a compelling spark. But somewhere it went wrong.

The story is about a quasi-psychic priest who is trying to solve a string of murders. The first thing that is hard to bite into is Richard Grieco as a priest. Well the part doesn't call for him to be a good priest and he succeeds rather well. The second problem is Dennis Hopper as the crazy bad guy. He always plays the crazy bad guy. Very ho hum.

Oh, a thought occured to me that maybe all the jumpy, horrible editing and disconnected plot was trying to add a sense of the confusion the character (Grieco) was experiencing. And just to prove that it was contrived they rolled the credits backwords. Not a good sign for any movie.

I'll give writer/director William Gove credit for finding someone to finance this ill-conceived "thriller." A good argument for not wasting money subscribing to HBO, let alone buying DVDs based on cover art and blurbs. A pedestrian Dennis Hopper and a game Richard Grieco add nothing significant to their resumes, although the art direction is not half bad. The dialogue will leave you grimacing with wonder at its conceit; this is storytelling at its worst. No tension, no suspense, no dread, no fear, no empathy, no catharsis, no nothing. A few attractive and often nude females spice up the boredom, but this is definitely a film best seen as a trailer. I feel sorry for the guy who greenlighted this thing. Good for late-night, zoned-out viewing only. You have been warned.

First of all, what is good in the movie ? Some pretty actress ? the exotic background ? the fact that the actors don't laugh while acting (I would have if I had been in their situation) ? I don't know. The storyline is simple : a catholic priest who does abstract painting tries to find out who (another abstract painter) killed his little brother, a male prostitute (raped by another priest when he was young...). I'm afraid there is nothing here to learn or to let think a little about serial killers, art or religion. Dennis Hopper is not very good here. This is the worst episode of the worst season of "profiler" (the serie) with replacement actors and unbelievable coincidences (the uncle is the policeman who, the girl who lives at another victim's house could have a baby with the priest, etc., etc).