A Rosa Venenosa

Ignore the bad reviews. Solid performances all around. A bit predictable but If you enjoy old noir flicks this fits the bill. I was actual surprised I liked Travolta in this. He's so hit or miss but I enjoyed his performance as the grisled PI.

This film tells the story of a private investigator who goes back to his hometown to investigate a case.

The story is actually quite engaging and suspenseful. The fear of the king of the small town is palpable. It is much better than the rating suggests. It's not that bad at all.

Starring an impressive cast including John Travolta, Morgan Freeman, Famke Janssen, Brendan Fraser, and Robert Patrick. This want a be film noir tries too hard with its more wordy than usual voice over of John Travolta and the efforts to make this movie into some sort of Maltese Falcon (1941), The Long Goodbye (1973), China Town (1974), Fargo (1996), L. A. Confidential (1997), Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), or Gone Baby Gone (2007). The script has too much thrown into the plot along with unconvincing gunfights. Instead a simplified script that allowed the actors to really shine would have been much better. Oddly enough Brendan Fraser, the Doc, gets the best character from which to show off his out of character star persona. The Poison Rose starts to show promise a third of the way in but then sort of collapses under its own weight to a more ambivalent but cliché ending. A more thoughtful script would have greater improved the movie and performances.

I couldn't believe the polarized reviews - some rating high and saying they also were confused by the extremely low ratings of others. The low ratings (almost all "1"s) are so similar in their generalized criticisms that it feels like someone paid people to leave them or the same person wrote them all. ("Worse movie ever"? Really? With no explanation as to why) When you go to rotten tomatoes same thing. A ton of only 1 star ratings, all by UNVERIFIED people. This is definitely not a 1 star movie. I have seen WAY worse movies rated way higher than 1. It is an interesting movie worth watching that I think has been under attack by someone trying to discredit it intentionally.

Forget some of the film's flaws. It's an entertaining film-noir type of the 1940s. Travolta is not an ideal PI, but a joy to see him act with Morgan Freeman and Brendan Fraser.

If you like film noirs of the 1940s, don't miss The Poison Rose