Ostaggi della follia

"Corporate executive Tom Williams (John Ritter) and his beautiful wife Gina (Rachel Hunter) take a much needed family vacation to sunny California. Unfortunately, they end up in the sights of Eddie (Eric Roberts), a career criminal, and his violent crew of kidnappers looking for their next mark. The crooks earn Tom's trust, get his guard down, and snatch Gina and their children. If Tom ever wants to see his family again, he must pay Eddie $1.2 million, his entire net worth. With only one day to comply and no one to turn to for help, Tom is in a race against time, with his family's lives at stake," according to the DVD sleeve.

That is an excellent description of the "Tripfall" plot, but doesn't give you any idea about how painful it is to watch this "family in peril" movie. It could be the worst to feature two fairly well-known names - those being Eric Roberts and John Ritter. They are so mismatched, it's pathetic. If Mr. Ritter were in shape, they could have exchanged roles; then, the actors might have made it more interesting. For the record, most others in the cast are better; though, admittedly, that's not difficult to say. For skin trackers, Katy Boyer wears a barely there pink bikini in extreme close-up, and the topless bar scene occurs early.

** Tripfall (6/27/00) Serge Rodnunsky ~ Eric Roberts, John Ritter, Rachel Hunter, Katy Boyer

Ridiculous implausible heist/ransom caper that I still found some enjoyment from thanks, in no small part, due to the late great John Ritter's sheer charisma. Even in a film as stunted and borderline absurd as this one was, his likability still shines through, here as normal everyman Tom.

Tom goes on vacation with his family hoping to reignite the spark of his dying marriage, if for the kids sake if nothing else. However that gets put on the back-burner when he and his family get abducted by a trio of baddies headed by Eric Roberts in dreads. What follows is entertaining enough ridiculousness.

By the by, and totally unrelated, but I'm starting to do a six-degrees type spin on what films I review so the next one will also star Mr. Roberts

Two very bad guys and a gal hold a family for $1.2 million to be withdrawn from a bank. Father (Ritter) has several chances to contact cops, doesn't, decides to be a hero by himself. He makes several decisions about saving his family that no reasonable person would make. The others watching with me were moaning and saying, "How can he be so stupid?"

I caught this movie on late night, I was working on my wife's computer and it was the only thing on. (famous last words) This movie was horrid! The only thing worse was 'Space Mutiny' which had been on the night before. I read here about Eric Robert's great performance....it was horrible! His entire performance reminded me of the title character from all the 'Ernest' movies. The only saving grace was John Ritter's performance, although he was straddled with an absolutely HORRIBLE plotline, where he did (or did not do) things that no sane human would. Everyone else in the movie was given so little to do or act as, it was almost pointless to watch unless the only other thing to watch is an hour long advert for nose hair trimmers. Run away from this movie.

I am a huge fan of thriller movies, and this one was standard, but not great. Eric Roberts seems to always stick to his Low-Budget films, he could do so much better then that. Poor old John Ritter has his good and bad films, this was a good movie but the budget was far to low, which made it a bit less bearable, give it a go, see what you think.

5/10