Guida alla morte per principianti

Guy Ritchie films are usually pacy, character driven & quirky with cartoon violence & a slick soundtrack - which is the style writer / director Jonathon Sobol tried blatantly aping with his 2010 Niagra Falls based debut "A Beginners Guide To Endings". After roguish Harvey Kietel's suicide his three very different oldest sons (Scott Caan, Paolo Costanzo & Jason Jones) learn thru his will (read by uncle JK Simmons) that they too will die soon (due to Kietel putting them in a drug trial yrs earlier) so each goes loopy in his own silly way, before fate weaves their strands back together. It's an unoriginal, implausible & hole-filled pale-imitation, but as an homage to Ritchie... it's passable.

"The events leading up to my death were a lot like the rest of my life, things didn't go exactly as planned." Duke White (Keitel) is dead and his three sons are at the will reading. After hearing what they will get they also get another surprise, due to gambling problems their father signed them up for unsafe drug tests when they were babies and because of that they all find out they will die soon. All three sons handle the news differently but eventually they all take one last run at the one thing they have always wanted to do. Based off the preview this is a movie I was looking forward to. I really like these dark comedies and the cast was pretty good. I have to say that I really enjoyed this movie and laughed throughout, but this is another movie where I laughed at things I shouldn't be laughing at. The idea on it's own is pretty morbid but watching it it comes off as more comedy then depressing. There are some really funny lines in this and the running gag about Cal's (Caan) car is great and I loved hearing what they would say about it next. This is a very funny comedy but is not for everyone. Overall, really funny but this is a dark comedy so you must like that style of humor to fully enjoy this movie. I give it a B+

Duke White (Harvey Keitel) decides to end his crazy gambling life by hanging himself. When that fails, he jumps into Niagara Falls. He has 5 sons. He has three sons with Goldie (Wendy Crewson). Then came Juicebox (Jared Keeso) from showgirl Champaigne. There is Todd (Siam Yu) from the Siagon Incident and Goldie finally left him. Nevertheless she remained the boys' mother.

In his will, Duke tells the three oldest that they are doom to die from drugs that they took for money along with him. The pharmaceutical company had paid each brother $100k as compensation for their impending death but Duke had lost it all betting on horses. The three brothers are sent into a spiral to find some kind of meaning in it all. Uncle Pal (J.K. Simmons) tries to help each one in his own way.

Eddie 'Nuts' White (Jason Jones) is a failed undefeated boxer who wins only because everybody keeps punching him in the junk. Cal (Scott Caan) is a womanizer who wants his teenage love Miranda (Tricia Helfer) back after sleeping with a waitress who also slept with dad. Jacob (Paulo Costanzo) is the responsible one and completely unhappy. He makes a bucket list to do.

Jason Jones is so ill-fitting as a boxer. If anybody should be the boxer, it should be Scott Caan. The three guys don't look anything like brothers. They don't fit together and have no brotherly chemistry. Paulo Costanzo and Jason Jones could be brothers but there is no chance for Scott Caan. The movie is so quirky that it makes it hard to follow and lacking in flow. Newcomer Jonathan Sobol is the writer/director. I think he has a lot to say and a lot of style. He just needs to rein it in and control it better. The other problem is that the three brothers go off on their own. It would help with the brotherly chemistry if they face their challenges together. I'm all for quirky comedies. It would help if the family is more together.

A favorite movie of mine, Magnolia, is introduced with a narrator talking about odds and the unlikelihood of certain things happening and A Beginner's Guide to Endings starts in a very similar fashion. The credits for this Jonathon Sobol film are cleverly presented as parts of games of chance and from the outset there is that feeling that unlikely things are going to happen and this will be an unpredictable and unusual comedy. The Beginner's Guide was one of more than a dozen options available at the Domestic Arrivals Film Festival in London Ontario and it is one that I almost missed. When so many quality films are offered in such a short time frame sometimes difficult choices have to be made. This film was one of the best decisions I made and everything about it impressed me. The award winning screenplay gave the ensemble cast plenty of material to work with and their performances were all pitch perfect.

J.K. Simmons serves as an adviser to the White brothers, a family so dysfunctional that they could lower the property values in any neighborhood they chose to call home. Siam Yu manages to deliver up some laughs as a very credible Todd, the youngest product of Duke White's many misadventures. While Harvey Keitel doesn't need a lot of screen time as the Duke White character his presence is felt throughout the full 92 minutes. Any casting changes would have made this a different film and it likely wouldn't have been a better different. Everybody needed to be who they were to make it work as well as it did. The shooting locations in Niagara Falls are very familiar to most people, but because of the close proximity to London there may have been a stronger connection for the audience here. This isn't a film for everyone but it is one that l will go out of my way to see again.

This movie is really impressive. I expected it to be some pretty bad stuff I'd turn off after a shot while but I liked it very much. The way it's told is a mixture of classic styles and it also reminded me a little of the way Tarantino tells his stories. The whole plot is cool and without comparison. Cast of characters, acting, settings, locations etc are completely awesome, character development as well. So I'm still stunned that I watched this movie 2 years after it came out and it only has 198 views with a rating of only 6.6 which is completely ridiculous to me. Music and ending are nice as well. I really liked it and I think it's one of those movies that's worth to be watched again. I guess someone did a very bad promotion for this DVD because it's worth to be watched by way more people and not only because of it's nice humor.