Fall Time

All right I've read the other comments and feel I'm one of those who had a hard time with this movie. Director, Paul Warner, brings three young boys together with a chance meeting with two not so young men. It's all about a prank gone wrong and the aftermath of the game.

Mickey Rourke, who always seems to get these weird roles of emotionally disturbed people, once again, talks in whispers. He also manipulates others, as he's done in past films. In other words, there doesn't seem to be any change in his style. However, Stephen Baldwin, his victim, gets a chance to show more than his usual tough guy image, with a sensitive performance. Is he gay? It's never made clear, but through Baldwin's performance you would assume he is. This is why he becomes weak in the knees when Rourke commands him.

Of the three young boys, Jason London got more to do with his part. The other two, David Arquette and Jonah Blechman, were somewhat less convincing.

The girl, Sheryl Lee, didn't impress me. Except when she began to undress London. I thought finally something is about to happen. But unfortunately it didn't.

The violence, blood and bruises were abundant throughout this movie. As though this was what audiences would be impressed with. When you have as much as this film presented, after awhile it becomes boring. The mother baking the pie, without words, was all camp. Was she for real? Placing the cherry on top of the pie and tripping as she was carrying a birthday cake, were among my favorite moments. And Baldwin's acting. 6 out of 10 is my vote, in favor of Baldwin, London and Arquette.

Ambitious in its use of Gay leads (no overtones here, completely in your face), period setting, and crazy goings on. The Movie starts sort of weak with overacting by the three teenagers wildly flailing about and trash talking incessantly. But once our two ferry-land psychos enter, the thing sort of becomes entertaining in a low rent hoodlum kind of way.

Although it goes to some length to be 1950's kitsch some of the props look like modern thrift shop and antique store borrowings as they are worn out and do distract somewhat from believability. But that is a minor quibble because things do perk up and turn into some fun.

The convoluted plot and some of the explanations of some of the behavior develop confusion, it is the violence and the Gay behavior of the characters that bring this home with a different feel and is a near winner despite some of its missteps. This is one of Stephen Baldwin's best performances and Mickey Rourke is, well the always interesting Mickey Rourke.

This is the kind of movie which makes you wondering all the time how the madness created by coincidences will end, which is also the strength of the movie; it doesn't get bored. Fall time fits in the new type of genre that is introduced in the 90's: 'nouvelle violence'. The character of these movies are formed by the excessive use of hard violence, mostly in the crime circuit. As you'll probably know, the leading man in this genre is Quentin Tarantino, with movies like reservoir dogs and true romance (movies who look a bit like fall time).

The role of Mickey Rourke is almost made for him, and also Baldwin gives honor to his name.

It surprised me a bit that so few people voted for this movie, hence I would suggest that if you don't mind hard violence and you like a surprising end, go rent this movie, it won't let you down.

Rebellious post-high school buddies Tim (Jason London), Dave (David Arquette), and Joe (Jonah Blechman) are in the middle of their last summer together. Tim is off to college in the fall, and wherever the other two wind up, it will not be in the same place he will be. So the three of them, the bored threesome decide to pull of their most elaborate prank of all time. The plan is simple. Tim, all decked out in a nice suit that makes him slightly more than conspicuous in a small town like Caledonia, Wisconsin, will stand on a street corner near the bank, while the other two pull up fast in their black Buick (stolen from Dave's cruel father) and pretend, with blanks, to gun him down in the street, toss him into the trunk and speed away. After this reports about the Buick will be all over the news, and Dave's father will have a heavy dose of explaining to do. But while they plan the lark, ex-cons Florence (Mickey Rourke), and Leon (Stephen Baldwin) are planning to rob the very same bank. When the boys mistakenly abduct Leon (who is dressed in a suit similar to Tim's), and in effect, foil the crime, the stronger Florence immediately hunts down the suspicious Tim, and strong-arms him into assisting in the heist without Leon. Leon, meanwhile, once out of the trunk, easily detains Dave and Joe, and begins a paranoid investigation of their true motives before forcing Dave to reel off a conspiracy tale about himself and Florence, exactly what the very edgy Leon wants to hear. Leon, who is shown through his homosexual relationship with Florence (which began while the two served time) as being subservient and pliant, explodes when given the opportunity to call the shots for the two young boys, and becomes unhinged to the tune of torturous interrogation scenes that are almost too emotionally painful to watch. What follows is a violent, icy depiction of loss of innocence in the Eisenhower America, which ends the only way it can, with bodies on the floor. Though the film, made in 1995, was denied a theatrical release by co-stars bickering over billing, director Paul Warner spins a tightly wound tale of a adolescent joy-ride that goes awfully wrong. And perhaps the most interesting spin on the script is the parallel between the subservient relationship of Leon to Florence to the hero-worship Joe holds for Dave, and even paralleling Leon's treatment of the boys with the relationship of Dave to his father. This amounts to a perverse little twist of script that Freudians would love, where the two criminals do serve to provide a sort of perverse fathering of the children. The young cast is outstanding, exuding the requisite disbelief and innocence we expect from these boys. A particular standout is Arquette, who I previously did not feel could act his way out of a paper bag. Mickey Rourke is absolutely chilling as Florence, and Baldwin gives perhaps even a better performance than he did in The Usual Suspects, an absolutely brilliant turn as the explosive Leon. In all, Fall Time is a very good movie that snuck through the cracks, and is well worth a look if you can find a copy.

Mickey Rourke and Stephen Baldwin are about to pull off a small-town bank robbery. Unfortunately for their careful plans, three local youngsters have decided to do a fake robbery of the bank as a prank. Baldwin and Rourke subject them to sadistic and even sexual punishment.

It's an interesting central story, and the performances are good. However, the film makers have decided to set it in the 1950s and excoriate the entire decade. They also include several dozen shots of a woman baking an apple pie, and three children -- presumably the youngsters some years earlier -- playing around a swimming hole. Clearly intended to add depth to whatever the message this film tries to offer -- something like "don't try to rob a bank as a joke, because it probably won't turn out well" -- this movie would have turned out a lot better without that.