Paparazzi

In Beverly Hills, the Montana family-man actor Bo Laramie (Cole Hauser) becomes a superstar with the franchise of his action movie "Adrenaline Force". His family and he lose their privacy with the success, being stalked by four tabloid paparazzi leaded by the despicable Rex Harper (Tom Sizemore). When the photographers provoke a tragic traffic accident with Bo and his family, his wife Abby Laramie (Robin Tunney) is seriously injured and his son Zach Laramie (Blake Bryan) enters in coma. When Bo unintentionally causes a fatal accident with Kevin Rosner (Kevin Gage), he decides to plot revenge against the other three scumbags to protect his family.

"Paparazzi" is flawed, but is also an entertaining tale of revenge. Tom Sizemore is amazing in his performance of a nasty guy, and there are the uncredited participations of many VIPs, such as Vince Vaughn, Mel Gibson, Chris Rock and Matthew McConaughey among others. It is funny to see the evolution (?) of the naive character Paparazzo, performed by Walter Santesso in Federico Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" to the present days. Do not think too much about the flaws, and you will certainly see an enjoyable film. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Paparazzi"

Bo Laramie (Cole Hauser) is living "The American Dream". Money, fame, fortune beyond his wildest dreams. But unfortunate for Laramie, fame comes with a price, by the name of the Paparazzi. The persistence of the paparazzi leaves Laramie in the hospital, and his son in a coma. The press will clearly do anything to get the perfect shot. Laramie decides that the only to stop his problems is to take them out one by one.

A team of four relentless paparazzi soon are the ones who become the victims. The ringleader of the gang, Rex Harper (Tom Sizemore) soon realizes that he and his gang are the ones in danger. Wendell Stokes (Daniel Baldwin), Leonard Clark (Tom Hollander) and Kevin Rosner (Kevin Gage) make up the four paparazzi that Laramie is bend on destroying.

One of the highlights of my summer was "Paparazzi". I wanted to see this since I first saw the trailer for it. Looked like a pretty interesting take on the action/thriller genres. The lead roles Cole Hauser and Tom Sizemore are quite impressive. In my opinion, Sizemore owns this movie. While it's not the role he was born to play, I can't see many others playing the role of Harper.

One thing I found interesting is that Mel Gibson along with other producers of Paparazzi were inspired to make this film upon reading articles of paparazzi attacks. Not as serious as the one in the film, but nevertheless.

The film is one of the first of its kind. That I've seen anyways. Exploiting the paparazzi. It just sounds like a fun movie to me. One that I haven't seen before. Paparazzi is other all, a very fun, enjoyable and a very entertaining flick. Check it out. You won't be disappointed. I wasn't.

***/*****

One of those movies that your not expecting a whole lot from, but you go because the trailer is cool.

We enjoyed the movie because it didn't have any down time and stayed as close to being an "action" movie as the plot allowed. A nice little twist at the end moved the ranking up a notch.

The bad guys were believable , but a little more "Baldwin" would have been nice.... Not an award winner by any means. You do leave feeling good because the movie was fast paced and no dull moments. Pretty good value for your dollar, a long as you don't spend $20.

Better to wait for the DVD Rental or watch as part of a Drive -In "3-Pack).

This movie was actually okay. Cole Hauser is always awesome and everyone else's acting was good as well. The plot might seem far-fetched to us ordinary citizens but stuff like this actually happens and it was an original idea as well...not some crap remake or endless sequels that have plagued us these past 2 years. The action was adequate and not over-done and it really got me hyped into making sure he obtained his revenge. I also liked the ending a lot and I left the theater completely satisfied.

Final Judgment:

Movies - Yes (but probably could wait for on rental)

DVD - A strong possibility

Rental - Absolutely!

This is an average B-movie, and like all B-movies, if you approach it right, it's bloody entertaining. That said, I found it curiously entertaining that some of the "reviewers" on this board (you know, those guys that spend 3 or 4 days writing their reviews?) hate this movie not because they hate THIS movie, but because Mel Gibson's name is attached as producer. LOL. One guy was gay, since he mentioned Gibson's name and politics about 90% of the time, and the other guy just hates Gibson. Dudes, this is a fun B-movie. Get over yourself and stop polluting the board with your childish rants against people you've never met, and will never meet in your life.

That said, Cole Hauser is the da man. I like this guy in PITCH BLACK and I like him here. Tom Sizemore is so good as the ruthless photog. Bloody hell, these guys make this movie!