The Gristle

Don't quote me on the HBO part, but it sure seemed that way. It's was a good movie that at times ran too long, but in general it was good. Not only did it have a good back and forth, "who screwed who" storyline, it addresses very important racial questions and tensions. Very few movies take such abstract looks and judgments at the current. Worth watching.

Did you ever own one of those electric football games as a kid? Were you like me, and no matter how carefully you brushed those stupid combs on the bases and arranged the players, your carefully painted Vikings and Packers just wound up kind of milling around in the middle of the field with no purpose while the kids on the box were executing option Is and play-action passes?

This is independent filmmaking by someone who really wants to execute a trick play, be a kid on the box like Quentin Tarantino and/or Kevin Smith. A "wacky" caper about kidneys and drugs that "pushes the boundaries" by having characters say dialogue like "I think our Cuban friend with the butt fetish just bought a vowel!" and making people with Hispanic accents quote Speedy Gonzalez at gunpoint.

If you dig this kind of thing (or really want to see Michael Dorn without his makeup turning in a really relaxed and casual acting job - he has some real presence which is completely wasted here) then this is your movie. Otherwise, huge waste of time unless you worked on it or have a friend who did. Wants to be observational but just winds up being a bunch of caricatures standing around in a parking lot waving guns, quoting Marvel Comics and exchanging racial insults.

If you turn up the volume you can hear the field buzzing in the background. Sorry, dude. Sincere but too flawed for a recommendation.

I watched "Gristle" primarily for the presence of Michael Dorn, as I enjoyed his Worf portrayal on Star Trek TNG, but had never seen him out of his makeup. Dorn appears to have a nice presence, and probably has the potential for a profitable acting career. This movie, however, gave him little dramatic challenge, except to prove that he can, indeed, use the "F" word.

It appears that this movie was made by someone who fancied himself as a forward-thinking type, with a social conscience. Yeah--- for 1965. Today, the themes are so belabored and sophomoric and cornball that even Spike Lee's dreadful "Bamboozled" looks good in comparison.

This crime-caper flick has an intricate labrynth of double-, triple-, and quadruple-crosses, but the plot scheme is so convoluted that it collapses upon itself within the first 30 minutes. Mostly, after that point, I simply watched out of momentum, and a mild curiosity about how each scene would play out. There is a great cast here-- you will recognize virtually everyone as a character actor from much better movies. Why are they all in this? I suspect it was 1) The work, and some money, even if modest. 2) Perhaps the director knows all these actors from acting classes and social connections around LA--- you know, perhaps they participated to support him, as a fellow struggling movie guy on the third and fourth tiers of the Hollywood scene. Dunno... but the movie was half-baked--- not really "finished." I gave it a 3, although my affection for the actors involved was undiminished from my admiration of their previous work. Let's hope everybody has moved on to more professional, more carefully done, and more thorough projects since.

As comedian Richard Jeni once said, I watched this movie because I "kept believing it had to get better." I have recently enjoyed the 5 sequel to a film called "my boring toaster' in my kitchen far more than this. Actors? I get it they sometimes need to go thru some awful garbage to reach...not so awful garbage. I don't really have issue with them per se, besides pretty much all of them sucking in this one. My bone to pick is first with the writer. I wanted to ask whether he had the regular or the crayon box with the built in sharpener. And when he got released from the head trauma unit. This borders on parody in the 'what NOT to do" territory. It's only further proof to me that technology is taking over and machines run everything because i cannot imagine a human being anywhere on earth, from Bob the mailman to Pol Pot himself, ever OKing this. It mortally suffers from a 90+ minutes case of 'aren't I so witty with my crazy banter syndrome'. Plop that on top of.."I thought you wrote the plot? Me? No no I thought YOU wrote the plot" and you have a 'MoreMax' premiere showing at 3:55am on channel 791. The only two posiives at all that i can comb from this nightmare was 1. It did end (which nearly is cancelled out by the fact that it exists), and 2. I have seen worse. Granted I was 7 and watching my dog eat his own poop.

Avoid at all costs. Unplug TV in case someone unknowingly flips it on. This is so bad it actually makes the programs on surrounding channels at the same time suffer.

I really liked this movie! The script was very funny and the actors, although most are pretty much unknown, delivered the lines well. I found myself laughing out loud frequently throughout the movie.

Michael Dorn is best known as Commander Worf from the Star Trek series, and that character is very stiff and rigid. In this movie Michael got to show a different side, and I feel that he pulled it off very well.

This movie has several subplots working together at once, and when these plots intersect it makes for some pretty funny events. The most pervasive element of the film is the racial undercurrents taking place between four different duos - two black men; one black and one white man; two Cuban men; and two white men. Most of the characters are dealing with illicict merchandise of one form or another, and some of the other supporting characters weave in and out of the plot fairly seemlessly.

I had not previously heard of this film, which tells me that many other folks have not heard of it either. That is really a shame, because I was very pleasantly surprised by the film. I would like to say that this movie is not all comedy, and definitely deserves the R rating for the content and language. Not much gore to speak of, although it certainly is present off camera. It is refreshing to see a movie that doesn't rely on blood and guts to get the point across, leaving the specifics of the gore to the viewers imagination.

Overall I would give this movie a 7 or 8 on a ten-point scale and recommend it highly. I will definitely add this one to my DVD collection. Folks who like Quentin Tarrantino movies should like this, but much more for the witty dialog than the violence. It is also reminiscent of films by Kevin Smith, such as Clerks or Mallrats, in the sense of the witty dialog and quirky characters.