The Raffle

The Raffle is one god-awful film. It's fascinating to watch, though. Simply because you can't believe anyone would make a movie like this.

It's about two dishwater-dull guys who want to make some money putting on a contest to find the most beautiful woman in the world. The plot has potential for comedy laced with some smut - it fails miserably on both counts.

One thing that is highly irritating throughout the film is that the actors are always laughing or have big smiles on their faces when there is nothing funny going on. I'm not sure if that's because they realize how stupid the film is or because the director is trying to use them as a moving laugh track. If a laugh track is the case, then it doesn't work.

If you're in the mood for viewing some T & A, steer clear of this gem. There is precious little of it. Considering the quality of the picture, you'd think they'd pepper it with female flesh.

The screenplay seems like it was dubbed to fit the mouth movements of the actors instead of suiting the film.

The cheese in this film is constant. There is scarcely a moment that I wasn't close to yakking.

Mark Hammill has a small part in this debacle. Fortunately, I heard he cashed in on the recent Star Wars films, so he probably won't have to be part of a project like this again.

If you are feeling masochistic or want to show film students how not to make a movie, check this one out.

This low-budget Canadian film has a decent cast and original plotline but suffers badly from a very low budget ($2 Million). It is also Nicholas Lea's (The X-Files) first lead role in a film and he gives a brilliant performance as David Lake, he's also supported by a pretty good cast of Mark Hamill (Star Wars),Bobby Dawson (X-Files) and Jennifer Clement. The story is about a down on his luck wise-guy who has an idea to raffle a date with the most beautiful girl in the world, he brings his reluctant friends in on it and everything seems to be going well until the sceptic (namely women) jump in!

I've actually bought seven copies of this movie. It's my favorite gift to either Nick Lea fans or people to whom I'm hoping to introduce some of the actor's other roles. It's a showcase for Nick and a delight to see other than some of the excessive footage they seemed to have randomly thrown into the movie. It's a warm and loving story with characters you have to have a heart of stone not to like. David Lake, Nick's character, is so spontaneous, charming, and physically uninhibited that he just makes you feel good to watch. David Palmer, played, by Bobby Dawson, is also the quintessence of the dreamer. Margot Miller, who is played by Jennifer Clement,is also wonderful. She's a woman who is a loving supportive friend, but she also has enough self respect to set limits. The PG rated version probably represents the better cut as the R rated scenes are really just montages of female bodies that don't add to the film making.

TCM showed the David Niven version of "Raffles" the other night, so I went to check on it in my library and found this movie sitting next to it, that I'd taped years ago but hadn't yet watched. I'd filed it under "raffles" since, at the time, I didn't recognize any of the actors in it. Realizing that I wasn't going to be adding any more movies about raffles to this tape, I slapped it onto the VCR to see if it was worth keeping and re-categorizing.

I don't know how this was edited for a PG-13 rating, but the R-rated version has two interlocking parts. Part 1 is the hackneyed story line. The best thing I can say about it is that the story flows rather well, probably due to good editing. Part 2 consists of a series of musical montages thrown in every once in a while, presumably to advance the story line and wake up the audience. Although they are jarring in context, out of context they are mildly interesting as curiosities in themselves, and they account for my rating this movie a 2 instead of a 1.

As for the cast, the two lead actors play these characters named Lake and Palmer (what, no Emerson?) who hatch the plot of the movie to raffle off a date with the to-be-found most beautiful woman in the world, played by Teri Lynn Rutherford, who apparently never made another movie, so I won't be stacking more of her flicks onto this tape. At least now I have a tape to reuse to record some other junk off the telly. I can't believe I spent my time writing a review of a movie barely worth watching.

The R-rated version of THE RAFFLE is one of the most baffling movies I've ever seen. Imagine a Disney-like movie, with cute acting, and cute this and cute that, but included in the whole thing are shots of full frontal nudity from a variety of bimbos. The effect is truly jarring. The whole film has the feel and authenticity of Pamela Anderson. Is so unrealistic and artificially cute, coy, and Aw Shucks, that one can gag at the whole thing. But the inserted moments of naked women, shot like cheesy Playboy centerfold videos, were totally incongruous with the cutesy aspect of the movie. This gave the film a creepy, sleazy feel unlike anything I've ever seen before, which was kinda cool, in an unintentionally funny kind of way.

The intentions of the artistically-challenged producers are clearly obvious: they wanted a parade of naked chicks. But they also wanted to make a movie that would be appreciated by more wholesome folks by simply re-editing the nude scenes out, and voila, a movie that can be played on some family network. But the characters of the movie, most of them men, are such losers and are so repulsive that a PG-rated version would still look bizarre and something about it would seem askew.

Is it worth watching THE RAFFLE just for the gratuitous nudity? I guess so, if you plan to fast forward through a lot of boring moments in order to see the naked bimbos. In the end though, if you want to see boatloads of female nudity, you might as well watch a Playboy video than this tripe.

THE RAFFLE is one heck of a confused movie.