MALPRACTICE

OMG, My wife and i just returned from the first showing and I LOVED this film!

This is truly the first comic book film I could feel harness what it was trying to capture without severly deviating from its source material and I'm at a loss to describe just how captivating it was. Del Toro is simply amazing if you ask me, he brought the comic to life in grand form and outdid my wildest expectations without making the movie some commercial crap fest that most movies *cough, cough... Catwoman* turn out to be. For a mere 60 mil he gave what most bloated 200 million dollar flicks never do:

A Heart and soul.

Think I'm gonna go catch this one again in a few hours.

10/10

Well, I just got back from a screening of TCM and in some ways I really don't know what to say, but heres my take on it. On one side I will commend the makers of the film for not making a tongue in cheek laugh fest like I had once feared they would, and straying from becoming the foul, odious mess that was cemented in Hollywood by the makers of Scream. They truly TRIED to make this a horror film no doubt and for that they do deserve credit. Leatherface was far better than I expected he would be (though I still have qualms with him and how he was utilized), and was effective in how he was used in certain scenes. Eric Balfour was excellent (though sorely underutilized) and R. Lee Ermey added some credibility to an otherwise lacking cast.

However the film they made was so riddled by cliché Hollywood moments I was ready to scream at the screen halfway through the film. Nothing was truly left to the imagination, it was way overdone and in your face, and totally took the aura of disbelief I was trying to bask in away early. I don't need to hear some loud screech every time something quickly darts by the screen to understand there is danger nearby, doing things like that only denotes a lack of skill in making something frightening to begin with. Dolby scares were served amply in the movie and far too often. The soundtrack was particularly annoying, it never would let up long enough to allow you to immerse yourself in the film, it always made sure to remind you were still just watching one.

But what was truly unnerving to begin with was how they squandered the potential for what could have been truly excellent film by playing to the same tired moments that horror has had for ages. Not a single scene came that somehow surprised me, almost every single scare was something you saw coming a mile ahead of execution so it was really hard to jump, in fact of the 10 people that were in the theatre at 1:00 none of them did either (though granted most were male). I was truly expecting SOMETHING scary given these reviews I had read, but I guess I'm far too desensitized to complain, but still. I expected something to maybe shock me. I liked certain key areas they were moving the kids through but the house itself looked very prop ridden and set up, the chase scene beneath with Morgan and Erin in particular looked very much like something a local haunted house would have rigged. The only thing missing was strobe lights and given how illuminated and `in the open' they made the house look I'm thankful for that.

Some things really had me scratching my head and questioning logic though such as the hitchhiker and her suicide. As they find her she's seems very moribund and sapped given the situation so you know she's obviously been through a lot. When she freaks out she pulls a handgun and blows her brains out the question remains just where the hell did the gun come from? When she was walking outside the van you could fully see there was nothing there as the wind pressed her dress against her pelvic region, yet she reaches down and wields a weapon out of thin air? Maybe I'm missing something here, but where the hell did that gun come from? Her Vagina? If she had the gun why didn't she USE its on them? Well, perhaps she grabbed it and escaped so I can buy that. But why was the family oblivious to her having escaped, and why weren't they up in arms trying to find her knowing that if she found the proper authorities that they would have been exposed? You can always argue that the sheriff was out looking for her, but the family never makes as much as a peep regarding her being found after being wrapped up. What was up with Leatherface tripping over the fence while chasing Erin and getting sliced up by his own saw, yet once he made his way into the slaughterhouse he was fine and seemed to have no ill effects at all from the wounds, not even a slight limp? But she hacks on him for a few moments and he's on the ground whining like a child? They really seemed to have a hard on for him being right behind her like Jason Voorhees and his victims, it effectively took away the scary human side the original Leatherface embodied. I mean he wasn't supposed to be some superhuman, yet he could tiptoe his big lummox ass right up behind her with out her even hearing a crackle of the rubbish beneath his foot? Come on, these places were riddled with junk, it would be hell to move undetected. Why did Andy not go into shock after half his leg was chopped off and he was hung on a hook (which by the way was way lame compared to the ferocity of the original hook scene), yet he goes dead limp upon having a knife shoved into his abdomen buy Erin? Getting stabbed in the gut is no small thing and it hurts like hell, you don't just `fall limp'. If anything he would have been writhing in agony even more. The flow of events also felt very Hollywood, it was almost as if you could imagine the sheriff in a huddle with the family saying `positions everyone!' because everything came across as so immaculate in how it moved from scare to scare, to the point of being artificial. Given her escape you began to ask yourself just how many of the Hewitt's there were, and if they were gonna cover half of Texas. again to play up the `based on a true story' bit it felt very synthetic.

Overall I give them credit for trying though. I rate the film 4 out of 10.

Make no bones about it, the Hurricane is a movie knee deep in Hollywoods twisted idea of reality, and by that I mean why tell the truth when a lie makes for a much better film? Well, in reality it probably would not do so,for the true story of Carter and his incarceration would have made him more of a thug and less of the "victimized African American" that the propaganda machine in Hollywood would hope you to see. Washington as usual is very strong in his role though almost nauseating in his delivery of many politically skewed lines fed to him from the obvious sympathy script. Hell even the real Carter has criticized the film for its watered down characterizations. The kneejerk liberal garbage this film exudes is sickening to anyone who wants truth in films, but hey go figure... Its Hollywood afterall, a place where other outright fallacies like Murder in the First and to a lesser extent movies like A Perfect Mind were made. If you wanna see the truth do a search on the case on the net, you sure as hell arent getting it here...