American Perfekt

I'd heard so many different opinions about this movie. At first it sounded like just another psycho-killer road movie (although with a cast of some of the greatest actors around) but then it got chosen for the Cannes film festival and won a bunch of other 'serious' awards. Anyway, one night my mom and dad saw it at a festival and when they got home they were arguing like mad - my dad (who hates EVERYTHING) called it a masterpiece - my mom said it freaked her out and shouldn't have been made! After that I didn't know what to expect but I knew I had to see it. Well, tonight I did and oh my God, it turned me upside-down. I wouldn't go so far as to call 'American Perfekt' a masterpiece, but it's smart, funny, beautifully acted and directed, and has moments of such straight-faced hilariously chilling brilliance that it made me remember why I love movies. I won't try and explain the plot in detail but Amanda Plummer plays a woman lost in the desert after her car is driven off the road by a mysterious car. She gets picked up by a criminal psychiatrist and a strange romance develops between them based on making all their decisions on the flip of a coin. Plummer is better than I've seen her since 'The Fisher King' (and even more beautiful) and Robert Forster is AWESOME! Better even than 'Jackie Brown'. David Thewlis is alternately funny, creepy and downright sad. And watch out for Chris Sarandon, too, as a gentle Deputy to Paul Sorvino's gung-ho Sheriff - a great performance that reminds us why he got nominated for an Oscar once (Dog Day Afternoon). The gorgeous Fairuza Balk is also excellent in a really intense performance much more mature than the usual flashier stuff she gets asked to do. Yeah, 'American Perfekt' starts off slowly but only because it's lulling you into a false state of security while it's crawling under your skin. And writer/director Paul Chart pulls it off without resorting to being 'above' his audience ie: despite all the clever different layers to the film, you never feel like it's trying to prove how smart it is - also, everyone really looks like they're having fun. All in all, 'American Perfekt' isn't so much a psycho 'art film' as a really neat and original movie that's been 'artfully made'. Give it chance and don't be afraid to laugh at how nightmarish it becomes. A warning to the faint-hearted, however - although Chart keeps the sex and violence fairly low-key, it has a habit of coming out of nowhere and is presented in such a matter-of fact way that it WILL stay with you (just ask my mom). There's another great score from Simon boswell, too ('Shallow Grave', 'Trainspotting').

Now, where did I put that shovel ....?

I saw this film in a film festival in Montreal a long time ago and I was amazed at the quality of this film. First of all, the screenplay is well written and the characters are well defined. Furthermore, the way it is shot proves that the director knew what he was doing.

Unfortunately this film never made it to theater here in Montreal and it is very hard to find. I am surprised to see that such a good movie couldn't get any distribution, but I guess that's the way the system work. So many good films don't make it while so many bad films gets released...

I hope it will be easier to see it on DVD. I recommend this film to whoever wants to watch an intelligent movie.

I hope this movie receives more attention now that it's on video. Robert Forster gives a great performance that anchors the film. Also, the casting director has populated this effort with a very talented cast that is willing to go as far as the story requires. Yes, the road movie is a tired genre but I think the performances elevate the movie above its premise.8 out of 10.

A remarkable film that captures what it is like to suffer from obsessive compulsivity and blossoming insanity. As a psychologist, I can verify that Forster plays his role to perfection, capturing the confusion of his character, a confusion that only the one time chance flip of a coin can correct.

The cast is all star and very good performances are turned in by Balk, Plummer, Sorvino and Gleason, especially by Sorvino of the long suffering sheriff.

As a road picture/slice of life film, this excels. See it and note the verbal and nonverbal characteristics of the Forster character. This film is a winner at all levels.

American Perfekt is a disjointed yet darkly compelling little nightmare of a road movie, a dusty ode to bowers of the American southwest left unchecked and decayed, populated by wayward souls with perpetual heat delirium, vixens, psychopaths and hustlers alike, who saunter through lurid story lines that often end in bloodshed and madness. In the vein of stuff like Oliver Stone's U-Turn and Kalifornia, we once again pair up with some extremely off colour characters as they navigate both the tangled web of highways that lace the States as well as the human capacity for greed, lust and heinous physical violence. The characters, and actors for that matter, who populate this stretch of highway are an especially bizarre bunch, starting with Robert Forster's vacationing criminal psychologist Jake Nyman. Forster is quite the unpredictable guy, usually found in calmly benign protagonist roles, yet just as capable of stirring the pot with evil antics. Here's he's opaqueness incarnate, driving from one place to another until he runs into two sisters played by another couple of acting hellcats, Amanda Plummer and Fairuza Balk. Jake is basing each decision of his trip upon the flip of a coin a-lá Harvey Dent, a tactic which simultaneously causes trouble and indicates how unhinged he might really be.

Plummer is weird and Balk is weirder, but neither as weird as David 'Professor Lupin' Thewlis as an awkwardly placed character who seems to exist just to jump into a scene and throw the mood off kilter. There's others running amok too, including Geoffrey Lewis, as well as Paul Sorvino and Chris Sarandon as a pair of state troopers who serve as comic relief. Forster is scary here, playing a guy who is psychologically hard to pin down or get a read on, and he's got some dynamite scenes with Balk in the third act, the two talents lighting up the frame. It's pretty far south of coherent though, mostly just these freaks terrorizing each other and engaging in puzzling romantic flings that only make sense to them, I suppose. If feverish, borderline abstract, sun-stroked neo noir is your thing, go for it. You can certainly do worse than spend a certifiably bonkers ninety minutes with this terrific bunch of actors.