I due criminali più pazzi del mondo

This movie is SO cartoony it is painful to watch, and I AM a fan of Raimi, Campbell and the Coens. The bad guys' dubbed voices are so annoying I considered just turning it off, which I NEVER do. Campbell was the only decent thing about this movie, and he has a relatively small role. If you are considering seeing this movie, just read the memorable quotes section of this website instead.

When I first saw this film, I neither knew nor cared who the Coen Brothers or Sam Raimi were.

Probably a good thing, really. I now identify the goofy, cartoonish elements with 'Raising Arizona' and the violence with 'Bottom' or 'Itchy & Scratchy', but I do remember laughing like a drain at this strangely unhinged melodrama.

The rodent-like Brion James and the brutish Paul L.Smith are excellent slapstick hoods, Louise Lasser has a brittle classic glamour and Reed Birney (who I've never seen in anything else) is the wide-eyed, hopelessly romantic loser who would be totally out of his depth in a puddle, let alone the troubles that come to him in this story.

Being a Sam Raimi film, Bruce Campbell is present, in a splendidly oily performance as a total heel. According to one of Bruce's books, making the film was a tough job for various reasons, but the result, while not a classic, is definitely worth your time.

"Crimewave" is a bizarre film, written by the Coen Brothers and directed by Sam Raimi. The plot is just strange... two criminals kill the owners of an alarm company and then begin killing the witnesses to the crime. Done in slapstick comedy style...

This film has Sam Raimi written all over it. His crazy zoom camera shots, the inclusion of Bruce Campbell as "the heel"... and the very over-the-top silliness. The only other time the Coens really tread this path was with "The Hudsucker Proxy" (which is, in all fairness, the better film)... and that, too, had Raimi's involvement.

I suggest this film is worth seeing. While not the Coens' best, not Raimi's best, it's an interesting little film, bizarre, and a good showcase of early work from those involved.

Okay, it's directed by Sam Raimi, co-written with the Coen brothers, and features both Bruce Campbell and the late Brion James, so what are you waiting for?! RENT IT NOW! Raimi may have disowned this because it was taken out of his hands, but this shouldn't put you off. That kinda thing happens way to much (see the films of Peckinpah,Orson Welles or Donald Cammell). We can't judge the Crimewave that COULD have been just the one we have, and guess what, it's a damn funny, clever, black comedy with enough "action" to please both the popcorn movie brigade and Roadrunner fans. The film is nearly ruined by the uncharismatic lead couple, but that is more than made up for the star turns by James and Paul Smith as a couple of psycho exterminators, and Campbell as a "charming" Lothario. Fans of 30s/40s comedies and musicals ( Emil Sitka doesn't have a cameo for nothing), the more slapstick parts of Evil Dead 2 and Army Of Darkness, the zanier Coen Bros ( think Raising Arizona or Hudsucker Proxy) or Stanley Tucci's The Imposters should enjoy this zany fun. Oh, and wait til you see the door slamming chase sequence! All this and Louise Lasser too.

I hadn't heard anything good about this film, and its obscurity didn't lend much credence to the theory that it was any good, but it seemed impossible to me that coming from Joel & Ethan Coen, Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert, and Bruce Campbell, that it could be totally lacking in quality.

And indeed it isn't. I'm surprised this film isn't more popular in the cult world. There's plenty of trademark Coen Bros. dialogue, Sam Raimi crazy camera moves (indeed, in this sense this film is more entertaining than his recent sedate mainstream work), and Bruce Campbell charming cheesiness. I wish someone would release this out-of-print film on DVD so more genre fans would have the opportunity to check it out.

I guess one problem people might have with the film is that they're trying to watch it as a straight comedy. From this perspective, I guess the film is at best uneven. But the film's purpose is as much to pay tribute to vanished 30s and 40s movie conventions as it is to make you laugh. This is fun, because while the Coen Bros. keep returning to that time period in their movies, this is the only time they really play with the *film* style of that period -- their other views on the past are filmed through a modern lens (figuratively and literally). Likewise for Raimi, who hasn't had much other opportunity for this beyond some "Three Stooges" schtick in the "Evil Dead" series. The only other film I've seen that pulls off this kind of tribute is Richard Elfman's brilliantly quirky "Forbidden Zone" (which admittedly does it better). Both films, for instance, feature the classic wipe consisting of a black circle that closes in on the shot, ceasing contraction for a moment to frame an actor's face as they do a final take, and then contracting the rest of the way to a black screen.

I guess one thing that might have lifted this movie to greater heights would have been if Bruce Campbell had been allowed to play leading man Vic as was originally intended (but disallowed by the studio, per Bruce's excellent autobiography "If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor"). While Reed Birney competently plays the fumbling pipsqueak (and actually brings a more poindexterish quality to the role than Bruce physically would have been able to), he just doesn't have the charisma to really pull you in. Oh well -- Renaldo "The Heel" is a classic Campbell character, so there's some consolation there.

A parting note is that Arlon Ober, a primary composer of the brilliant score to the "Robotech" series, provides a wonderful score here as well, one of only 11 he's done, per IMDb. Almost worth seeking this out just for his great, fun score (the ending credits song is especially smile-inducing).