The Big Ugly

The Big Ugly Micro Review -

First and most importantly Ron Perlman is absolutely fantastic. Vinnie Jones, Malcolm McDowell, and Bruce McGill are also all wonderful. Unfortunately, the film's positives end with its cast. The Big Ugly features a great setting with intriguing character relationships but fails to deliver on its promise of West Virginia Gangster Shakespeare.

The Big Ugly has numerous questionable production choices. Interior bar scenes are filmed against bright large front windows blowing out the shot. The editing is extremely overworked bouncing around the room without motivation other than to give the appearance that talking about events is fast paced. The action that is portrayed in this genre gangster film is generic and forgettable lacking any personality.

Perlman, Jones and McDowell elevate the quality of a film that would have been a complete disaster without their natural talent, charisma, and excitement. That's the disappointment aspect of The Big Ugly. The story idea is actually interesting with an upper class West Virgina Gangster family dispute. Unfortunately, the talent of the Big Ugly's actors are miles above the quality of the film.

Don't expect another Lock Stock type film and don't expect too much. The story line was pretty good but sad to say some of the acting was not. Watched it till the end and never once thought about turning it off.

The film had a good plot but was unfortunately butchered by the lack of character profiles and terrible script writing, the action scenes sucked, it was like the producer was a fan of sons of anarchy and snatch and thought " ooo that would be a good film!

The Big Ugly is a typical story you can expect with Vinnie Jones. Vinnie Jones was as a footballer (soccer player for the Americans) already one of the meanest player there could be and in his movie career he's just playing that same character over and over. I guess he has the face for it, but it would be nice to see him playing something different in the future. Vinnie Jones, Malcolm McDowell and Ron Perlman did a fairly good job playing their characters, the story on the other hand is one of those stories we've seen before, macho against macho seeking revenge. It's all déjà-vu but it's entertaining if you like that kind of stuff. Good enough to watch once.

I was initially interested in this because of an article about it being filmed in the area of Morehead, KY. Malcolm McDowell's son was so bored spending time in Morehead that he requested to go home rather than spend another night walking around in the local Walmart. I don't blame him.

I started out watching out of morbid B movie curiosity, but eventually warmed up to the story. I've known guys like "Junior" IRL and in many movies. Immediately upon meeting Junior, I knew this movie version would probably be getting his comeuppance in the end. However, I didn't know how everyone else's story would play out. There were a lot of small stories being woven into the picture and those are what kept me around. I don't feel it was time wasted.

I think this is my first review. I only wrote it because I thought some of the others were much too harsh.