A Maldição

Billy Halleck (Robert John Burke) hits an old gypsy woman with his car, and with the help of his lawyer and judge friends gets away without even a traffic fine. Unfortunately for him, he cannot use legal maneuvers to get the gypsy curse off of him!

Stephen King has one of the worst track records for film adaptations. For every great film (Green Mile, Shawshank Redemption, Shining) there are some real piles of rubbish. And any number of films in between. This one, luckily, is closer to the good end. Some have pooh-poohed it, but I found it pretty enjoyable.

Beyond the main story, which was average, the film comes alive due to Joe Mantegna's portrayal of Richie Ginelli. Mantegna, who you may know from "Criminal Minds" or as the voice of Fat Tony from "The Simpsons", is pretty great as violence incarnate. When he unleashes his vengeance on the gypsies, you almost have to feel bad for them, as you admire his tenacious bloodlust.

I have heard people complain about the ending, which apparently varies from the novel. I have also heard that the novel has more intricate subtleties that the movie overlooked. I do not have the novel, so I cannot comment on that, beyond saying that I really enjoyed the ending. I can't say what it is, but I found it very appropriate.

Burke's Clint Eastwood voice may be a bit dramatic, but I did not mind... oh, and Kari Wuhrer appears, as well... though does little more than provide a dash of sex appeal.

This engaging adaptation of the novel, which Stephen King wrote under his Richard Bachman pseudonym, stars the under-rated Robert John Burke ("RoboCop 3") as Billy Halleck. Billy is a lawyer in Maine who happens to be grossly overweight. After he accidentally runs down an elderly Gypsy woman, his judge (John Horton, "The Shawshank Redemption") and police chief (Daniel von Bargen, "O Brother, Where Art Thou?") friends conspire to help Billy avoid any punishment. This infuriates the old womans' even more ancient father (Michael Constantine, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"), who places one of those old-fashioned Gypsy curses on Billy. Stroking Billy's cheek, he utters one word: "Thinner". Soon, Billy is rapidly losing weight, which he enjoys at first, until he realizes that he really is going to waste away to nothing unless something is done.

Just personally speaking, this viewer has a blast with this particular King story. Yes, it's unrelentingly downbeat, but I didn't mind that so much. And it's true: other than Billy's daughter Linda (Bethany Joy Lenz, 'Pearson'), there isn't a single character in the story that's particularly sympathetic. Still, this viewer found it refreshing that so many of the characters here turn out to be such a-holes. It's a highly entertaining tale, well told by co-screenwriter and director Tom Holland ("Fright Night", "Child's Play"). And it's fortunately not completely without a sense of humor, although the humor tends towards the dark.

There's wonderful music by Daniel Licht, but the real marvel of the movie is the astonishing, convincing makeup effects (supervised by Oscar winner Greg Cannom) that transform the thin Burke into an obese man. There's also a gem of a supporting performance by the always entertaining Joe Mantegna ('Criminal Minds') as a mafia man whom Billy had successfully defended in court. Therefore, the mobster feels indebted to the lawyer, and is more than willing to help Billy in his quest to convince the ancient Gypsy to remove the curse. The supporting cast is solid right down the line, with Lucinda Jenney ("Thelma & Louise") as Billy's possibly unfaithful wife (the script tries to leave this aspect as ambiguous as possible), Sam Freed ('Kate & Allie') as a doctor friend, the intoxicatingly sexy Kari Wuhrer ("Eight Legged Freaks") as Constantines' great granddaughter, Elizabeth Franz ("School Ties") in a bravura turn as the judges' distraught wife, and Peter Maloney ("The Thing") as an information provider. Director Hollands' son Josh plays Frank Spurton; King has his usual cameo (playing a pharmacist). What is a real laugh is the fact that actress Irma St. Paule ("Twelve Monkeys"), as the accident victim, actually looks OLDER than Constantine!

Good gloomy fun, but it won't be to all "tastes", especially the ending.

Eight out of 10.

...for a King work: they've always had a mixed track record. Generally this one is a tribute to the F/X wizardry as Robert John Burke goes through multiple transformations. That in itself is pretty horrifying. Most of the King subtleties have been sucked out of it, but what's new? It's basically a decent supernatural thriller. There is a slow, relentless horror to the whole thing, which doesn't rely on huge "jump out of the closet" shocks (although there are a few of those). Basically a horror movie for adults.

Look, I was entertained for 90 minutes, long enough for a few brewskies and some popcorn, and that's all I asked of it. It's not a masterpiece. It's a simple story, simple characters... but why would you expect anything else? Just look at the DVD cover for f***'s sake. I'm baffled by the people who come on this movie's forum and are surprised by what a bad movie it was. Uh yeah, don't get me wrong, it's a RIDICULOUSLY stupid movie, but that's pretty much what I was looking for when I rented it.

Had I gone into this movie without any former expectations, I would have given it 5 stars overall. The acting was way over the top, the directing not so great, and the writing wasn't spectacular either. However, the story was moderately clever, and it gets points for keeping a fairly tongue-in-cheek humor about it; at no point did I feel like it was trying to take itself seriously. I give it another star based entirely off the strength of it's makeup effects (yes, they're that good, considering it was made in a time before digital makeup).

Finally, I give it 7 stars, simply because it met my expectations as a cheesy, over-the-top, horror romp, and I would've expected nothing less from "Stephen King's Thinner".

From what I've heard, this is a fairly faithful adaption of the Stephen King story of the same name, but I've never read the book myself. The plot is decent, but somewhat ridiculous... and the pacing is awful. I was bored for most of the other half of this movie, despite it only being about 90 minutes long. The acting varies, but it's mostly bad... Kari Wuhrer displays a particularly obvious lack of talent, and Robert John Burke proves that he doesn't have the charisma or talent to carry a movie. Actually, Joe Mantegna pretty much steals the show, and every scene that doesn't involve him has you bored and wanting to see him again. The humor in the film is actually surprisingly good. There are some pretty good exchanges of dialog, and, as a nice variation from the typical King film-adaption, most of the laughs are intentional(though there are a few parts which still seem lame and make you laugh, as opposed to seeming scary and frighten you). The special effects vary, but for the most part, they are quite good. The films gore and violence may be a little over the top, and is definitely extreme, though there isn't terribly much of it in the film(but when there is, it's very graphic), but it didn't bother me as much as I had expected, from hearing it described by someone who has seen the film. Since I haven't really seen any other films by the director, Tom Holland, I can't say if fans of him will like this film. One thing that the fans of King will surely enjoy is that he himself has a role in this, and a pretty easily recognizable one, at that(not the typical somewhere-in-the-immediate-background cameo that writers/directors typically have). All in all, fairly enjoyable horror, but not something that you'll want to see many times. I recommend it to big fans of Stephen King, huge fans of the various actors, and people who just enjoy watching somewhat uneven films just for the heck of it. 5/10