Pretty When You Cry

(2001) Seduced: Pretty When You Cry THRILLER

Straight to rental, starring Jamie Kennedy as Albert Straka, becoming infatuated with club owner Frank Carreni's (Michael Cavalieri who's also credited as Associate producer) wife, Sara Carreni (Carlton Elizabeth). Much of the movie shows him explaining his story to homicide detective, Lukas Black (Sam Elliot). Inspired by other movies such as "The Last Seduction" to "Basic Instinct" and many other movies about females instructing people what to do blah, blah, blah. 1 star for the twist even though the overall movie is uninteresting and inconsistent.

I got roped into seeing this at a screening on 2nd Avenue. Boy did it stink. Bear in mind i saw this a year ago, and just came across the name, so i am now writing the review and voted.

Seems the writer(s) laid down the best ideas of many movies. Pulp fiction time shifting, 9.5 weeks erotiscim, etc etc. And then tried to put together a movie. But it doesn't work. Sorry I cant remember all the films they ripped off... but i wrote it down on the cards for the producers. But it was a laundry list. And very blatantly ripped off, not 'homaged' to.

Looking over the credits for this movie, it is unsurprising to find that the director has impressive credentials... as a cinematographer. The film is well composed visually. Other than that, this movie fails on so many levels, not the least of which is the horrible, horrible script. "Shocking" plot twists for the sake of shocking twists kill any suspense this film has. The pacing is horrible. After about an hour of the film, you think it is about to end, after another ten minutes, you are PRAYING for it to end. Gratuituos sex and violence are all this film has going for it. Why Sam Elliot agreed to do a movie as tragically terrible as this travesty of filmmaking is anyone's guess? If I was presented with a choice of watching this film again and getting ebola... I'd watch this movie, but it would be a tough choice.

Schlemiel falls in love with screwed-up junkie slut and gets involved with murder. The story unfolds in flashback. If you can't figure out what part Sam Elliott's character has in all this, you must have gotten an F in Plotting 102. A (very) little bit of NYPD BLUE type nudity for those who care, but this is no erotic thriller by any stretch.

Script is awful (writer is also producer -- it always pays to bring the ball), but performances would probably be OK in a high school play with a lot of bondage sex, cursing, sexual violence, and drug use. (The 12-stringer doesn't object to any of those except when they're handled as poorly as they are here.) Femme lead Carlton Elizabeth looks like a model and tries hard with what there is. It's not her fault that she's styled and shot throughout as if she's badly in need of a) a bath, b) a meal, and c) an implant reset.

Grimy, shot-in-the-dark film may look better on big screen, but I've only seen it on HBO in tv ratio and was reaching for a flashlight by the second reel. Aggressively unappealing characters and who-cares plot torpedo this one quickly. Not likely to be on anyone's resumé this time next year, but a sure bet to run on HBO as often as they carry SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE.

On a scale of 1-10, 1 from the 12-stringer, but I still think there should be a 0 category.

It must have been fairly good since I didn't seem to want to stop watching it, but it's nothing to write home about either. I can say I was surprised by some of the twists and I was never exactly sure of what was going on, but then again, I'm not sure if that was because of the intelligence of the script or because of its abnormality. Still, it deserves a 6 out of 10 for cinematography and a great sound track.

-m0