The Immortals

I just saw this film for the first time (Feb 07). I bought it for a buck on VHS. I'd never heard of it and realized the cast was a definite B-level cast at best, but I thought, what the heck? Just a buck.

I was pleasantly surprised. It's definitely no great film, but I actually enjoyed it. Sure, it's cheesy here and there, and it would've benefited from better direction. But I'd call it a hidden gem for any crime film fan to find.

An original, if bizarre, premise leads to some left-field drama and several genuinely funny moments. It's simply one of those late-night pleasures.

Enter Eric Roberts (American Strays, Purgatory, The Grave) a manager of a mobster owned (Curtis) high-rise hotel and eloquent casino. He arranges eight individuals, all unknown to each other to rob the other four casinos that also belonging to Curtis. Pairing them off, he sends them out with similar masks at the precise time of casino collections. Thus begins ninety minutes bloody shoot outs, humor and an interesting plot that catches the viewer off guard at the end. Chris Rock and Tia Carrere make an interesting team. Forsythe is superb as he lies shot and bleeding profusely and decides, `This is as good as time as any to take that last hit of acid I was saving.' As the plot thickens, they all realize they have more in common than just being robbers. To say anymore would give it away as that movie dude did with `The Crying Game.' And we don't want that, do we? On a scale of One to Five, I would give it three and half stars purely on the fact I think Roberts and Forsythe are great actors. But as the critic I'm not (laugh Barb) I'd probably give it four.

Wow. Another crime/robbery movie, but this one with a great twist....a must see and all that. I usually don't like this genre, but this movie is good for anyone. Has moments for all kinds of people. It is strikingly profound and this surprised me, that it was much different from the normal shooting/blood splattering movie type. A 10 from me.

.... Well that`s what I thought THE IMMORTALS was going to be like in the opening scene with Eric Roberts character telling his cohorts that he wants them to take part in a heist . Roberts is certainly cool enough to have easily fitted into the recent remake of the rat pack movie , but unfortunately he`s best known for cable and straight to video movies and the problem with THE IMMORTALS is that it has all the production values of a straight to video movie , especially the script which feels like it was written by screenwriters who`ve been watching Tarantino movies a bit too often . The plot twists and turns as you`d expect from Tarantino but the plot does so in an underdeveloped silly way instead of being smart and funny which I take was the original intention

A surprisingly well-known and talented cast help to make this an unexpectedly enjoyable film. In particular, Roberts and Pantoliano are solid as usual, and Chris Rock has some funny moments, as you would probably expect. Things do slow down midway through the movie, but a wonderful plot twist breathes new life into the film towards the end. The ending scenes are all too typical, but by the final minutes, there had already been enough clever writing and creativity to keep me happy. Despite some slow spots and a routine finish, this is still a movie that is definitely worth a look.