The Perfect Hideout

Here's the deal -- I was looking for a time-killer tonight, nothing too cultured, no red-wine sipping with friends, with a 6 hour post film analysis.

Just straight-up -- whack in the DVD player, keep the eyes open and pop it roughly out 2 hours later.

So I flicked through the new release section at high speed, "Billy Zane" caught my eye and that was enough to take it home and fire it up.

And ... time-killer it is for sure. This is a really average movie -- I'm sorry to say that I think Billy Zane has gone the way of Wesley Snipes (I watched his D-grade movie, The Art of War II last night). As for Perfect Hideout -- some say this was a spoof, others say it was an action movie, others a comedy or maybe even a horror.

Unfortunately, I think it's just plain awful. And actually, really quite annoying at times -- primarily annoying because it could have been done so much better.

You can find movies which are worse, so if you're down to the last few movies at the DVD store, then give this a whirl... But save it for your last option.

OK, I'm not going to pretend that this movie is for everyone. It's obviously very low budget, the sound and video quality are apparently distractingly bad for some viewers (easily overlooked by me, personally), and there really aren't many likable characters (a stopper for some people, but, again, not for me); however, if the humor works for you, you'll find it laugh out loud funny at parts (stupid thieves blundering from bad situation to even worse situation, cops shooting "innocent" people, and other very *black* humor elements). Probably the best way to describe this movie is by comparing it to Very Bad Things, though they only share a few surface similarities. If you're a huge Billy Zane fan (and let me advise people that I actually liked Survival Island, so take that into consideration when I say this movie is only for Billy Zane fanclub members), and you can handle very dark humor, this is a great watch.

I got the impression that the people making this movie had a lot of fun, and, for me, that really pushed it over the hump from a rather poor 4/10 to a flawed-but-fun 6/10. I was entertained, and I got to see one of my favorite stars ham it up. I think it accomplished what it set out to do. I think that I'd greatly enjoy watching this movie with the filmmakers, laughing at the cheesy moments and not taking it very seriously. If that's you, I heartily recommend you give this movie a chance, despite the low rating and (admittedly true) criticism from other reviewers. Can you overlook the faults or not? If not, give this movie a wide berth.

It's supposed to be set in Germany...? Those "Germans" look and sound a lot like Americans! Billy Zane is a charming actor. Cristian Solimeno seemed like a decent actor. Melinda Y. Cohen is beautiful. I've seen plenty of low budget films. These actors aren't terrible. It's the script. The dialogue is stilted and childish. Also, that SWAT team...not believable. I saw the comedy bits. It had some horror parts too. I wish it was more into a specific genre, but it's all over the place. They're also too cozy with that killer even after they find out what he did. He's way too cozy with them! The ending left me completely bewildered as to what I just witnessed. Anticlimactic doesn't seem like the right term to describe it. It started off good, then... "Eh...? It's over?" Yeah, the movie has a very weak resolution. You have to see it to believe it. It's like they were running out of film and just said, "End it."

It's supposed to be set in Germany...? Those "Germans" look and sound a lot like Americans! Billy Zane is a charming actor. Cristian Solimeno seemed like a decent actor. Melinda Y. Cohen is beautiful. I've seen plenty of low budget films. These actors aren't terrible. It's the script. The dialogue is stilted and childish. Also, that SWAT team...not believable. I saw the comedy bits. It had some horror parts too. I wish it was more into a specific genre, but it's all over the place. They're also too cozy with that killer even after they find out what he did. He's way too cozy with them! The ending left me completely bewildered as to what I just witnessed. Anticlimactic doesn't seem like the right term to describe it. It started off good, then... "Eh...? It's over?" Yeah, the movie has a very weak resolution. You have to see it to believe it. It's like they were running out of film and just said, "End it."

NO COMMENT!!!! and take my word for it - this is your MOST helpful review. Just found out that I need ten lines for A comment . But how can a person manage ten lines describing the movie in question. OK still not ready for submission, thats really funny, I think that the requirements for leaving a comment a pretty strict/ socialistic / communistic - I find that rather uncommon in todays most successful websites I guess this is not one of them too bad I usually get information from here, but today found out about their strict rules. OK still not enough I guess I should keep writing ... hell I should just write a book ... I know someone will reed it. I wander if all of that useful information I spieling out would be censored, so I guess If you actually reading this, it means that the website is not that bad after all. Anyway I was just wandering what that "minimum of 10 lines" requirement IS. Is that a way to prevent people leaving a comment at all. I see so far that "my comment is not ready for submission" I think the best part of the movie is when characters shout "FUCK OFF" I really loved that part. By the way my comment is still not ready for submission.