Swop

This movie is the oldest one I've seen of Robert De Niro. I got it for a present from my cousin who knows I'm a die-hard De Niro freak.

The quality of the DVD wasn't excellent, but what can one expect from an almost forty-year old flick. "Sam's Song" is the small story of one Sam Nicoletti. He tries to write and make a living but isn't really succeeding. He gets invited by friends for a weekend. There he tries to relax and enjoy the moment of getting out of his boring life. Eventually some small things happen like couple's betrayal and some weekend loving. If you're a real De Niro fan you just have to see it once. He is the only positive thing in this movie from John C. Broderick and John Shade.

I gave this one a 6/10. The film isn't great, script is just below average, screen quality is mediocre... but De Niro shows early glimpse of his genius!

Okay the story is this: De Niro made some lame movie name around 1969 Sam's Song that never saw the light of day. Fast forward a few years (say around 1980) and De Niro is a star so some joker gets a hold of Sam's Song, recuts it, adds some footage and viola! The Swap was born! Which is probably even worse than Sam's Song.

So if you are a De Niro diehard, you have been warned. But hey, so was I and I saw it anyway.

I don't think this movie itself is the worst ever put to screen and we all know De Niro can act, so I'm going to have to blame the no name directors who shot this movie in two different sittings and obviously had no idea how to bring the best acting abilities out of someone. De Niro's role for this movie was shot by one director for a movie with a different title and then later inserted into a re-cut version, which is evident by the fact that two different actresses portray Erica even though the time-line between the flashback scenes are only ten years. It doesn't even look like the same person. The movie ends with a lot of unanswered questions but that's only because the filmmakers ran out of money and never finished making it. So all in all, don't expect a ton of entertainment out of this film. Watch it if only to see a very early Robert De Niro performance under bad directing.

I would say I took a gamble by purchasing this movie, but it's hard to constitute $6.99 as a gamble. It came in a boxed with set with another old DeNiro movie, "Born to Run," which I haven't watched yet. Well, like I cynically expected, DeNiro is NOT the star of this film. Sure, his name appears first in the opening credits, but I'm guessing that's because the film was re-issued in 1980 and by then, DeNiro was already a moderately big star. The story basically centers around his character, but we only see him once in the first scene, and then momentarily in flashbacks. This was back when DeNiro had that Tom Selleck-like moustache, looking like an out-of-work porn star.

Not to be totally negative, the unknown actor who plays the main character gives a pretty good, though one-note, performance. The rest of the actors--except for DeNiro--could've been just as effective reading their lines off cue cards. And judging by the way this film was made--like a third-rate student film--I wouldn't be surprised if they were.

The cheap production values are as clear as day, but the film could've saved its integrity with a good script. Some of the dialogue is horribly laughable. But for $6.99, you often get what you pay for. At least it will serve as good filler for my extensive video collection.

My score: 4 (out of 10)

Just to let you know: Sam's Song is in fact a finished movie. In my country you can buy a very cheap DVD release which is actually titled The Swap, but it does contain the full movie Sam's Song.

Not that you guys are missing out on anything if they only released The Swap in your country. Sam's Song is also a horrible movie which doesn't seem to have any kind of plot.

De Niro plays some kind of amateur screenwriter/director who is invited by a befriended couple to some big mansion for a party. He meets a girl there and most of the movie is basically De Niro and this girl falling in love (which is translated on screen as the two of them just running around on a beach and stuff like that). Maybe they did in fact run out of money at a certain point because there doesn't seem to be a real ending to this mess.

The dialogues are laughable most of the time, the scenes just seem to jump from one thing to another with no real meaning or purpose. And I couldn't call it acting either what those people on screen are doing.

I can only assume this was some lame and cheap attempt at making an arty farty movie but they failed miserably. Or maybe this "style" of movie was just popular in the sixties, because there's another De Niro movie out there (Greetings, which is in fact directed by Brian DePalma) that's just as bizar as this movie.

Maybe some real hardcore De Niro fans would appreciate to see some early De Niro work like Sam's Song, but I can say without a doubt that this is a strong contestant for the first place in my top 10 of worst movies of all time.