Suddenly

I saw the original 1954 "Suddenly" movie several years ago, and I thought it was pretty good. This remake, however, just doesn't cut it. There are many reasons why it doesn't work, but I think the main reason is that its tone for the most part doesn't fit what should be a hard-edged thriller. The musical score is almost comic in tone at times, characters CONSTANTLY utter "clean" swears like "frigging" and"fudge" instead of real four-letter word swears (at least in the version I saw), and the bad guys seem too disorganized and soft instead of coming across as dangerous and intelligent killers. It seems that notorious director Uwe Boll's heart wasn't in this movie. Maybe it was because this project obviously didn't have a substantial budget compared to his other movies - it has that cheap and tacky look that plague so many other (bad) Canadian films. Boll's apparent lack of enthusiasm might also explain some real continuity flubs in the movie, like why it's snowing and snow- covered in some areas, though around the house where most of the movie takes place there's no sign of snow at all. It's all capped off with an ending that feels unfinished in a number of aspects. The end credits reveal that the creation of this movie was sponsored by a Canadian pay TV network, which are forced by a government-imposed quota system to sponsor a number of (almost always bad) Canadian movies every year. Based on this and the ton of other bad Canadian movies that have come from this quota for years, I'm really glad that Canada does not have a quota system for movie theaters!

I am not at all sure what the reason is for so many Canadian movie productions being of such poor quality. The fact is there is NO good reason for it. We have terrific writers, a wide variety of talented actors, and several great directors. A decent film doesn't start and end with any of that though. It starts and ends with solid producing, of which this production egregiously lacks.

Suddenly simply falls flat from the get-go and never really takes off nor goes anywhere. For one thing a Presidential visit to a small town looks like a grand affair, but the portrayal of that in this film comes off as low budget and rinky-dink. The actual Secret Service would have been all over that town.

Much of the dialogue is hollow, along with too much needless footage and shots, all serve to bring the watchability of it down further yet. Liotta's character had real promise but again, with not much in the way of meaty dialogue or depth of story even his is a somewhat tinny performance at best.

Weak writing is usually the main cause for actors coming off as bad, while poor direction is to blame for actors over-acting. Weak writing however can at least to some degree be compensated for with solid directing, but sadly that's another thing this film is sorely lacking in. Thus the entire production comes off as thin and very low budget. Newsflash Canada: "Low budget" does not always have to look as such.

Final thoughts --- This film does not do justice to the original with Frank Sinatra, not by half. The ending is somewhat inconclusive, and anyone who has developed any sort of connection with any of the principle characters is going to be disappointed at the lack of a decent story wrap-up. If you're bored and there's nothing much else on then go ahead and kill 90 minutes, but please don't blame me if you end up wanting your time back.

2/10, and that's being generous here.

I knew going in that the rating was low, but I thought maybe it was because Uwe Boll have many people who dislike him and maybe didn't give it a fair chance.

Now don't get me wrong, the first Uwe Boll movies I saw was 'House Of The Dead' and 'Alone In The Dark' and later 'In The Name Of The King' and they truly were terrible so he does get a bad name occasionally for a good reason.

But I've also discovered that he occasionally can be a pretty good filmmaker as well 'Rampage', 'Rampage: Capital Punishment', 'Assault On Wall Street' and 'Heart of America' are all solid movies for me.

I think those movies are close to Boll's heart and therefor they come out a lot better as he gives them a proper effort.

With this one though, not much effort was given at all.

The dialogue is poor, the acting is poor even the cinematography and pace is poor yeah there's really not many positives to give away here.

If I was forced to give one positive than I suppose I could say that at least it's not Boll's worst movie.

That is 90 minutes of my life I will never get back. To say the acting was bad is a discredit to bad actors. The story line was painful to follow and the action was dull and predictable at best. I like Ray Liota in a lot of his rolls but he must have been desperate to go for this one. It is a horrible remake that should have never seen the light of day. Purcell was decent in Prison Break but in this atrocity his acting talent was limited to scowls, stupid short lines and poor prep on how to handle a firearm. The premise of the movie sounded intriguing but it just did not deliver. The kid that played Pidge must have been picked up at the local middle school drama department and on the way back to the set the stopped at the senior center to get someone to play grandpa, neither one was convincing. To say this movie is a bomb is to be gracious.

Some movies just shouldn't be remade. I gave this film a 2 star rating because I did watch to the end. I like the actors, but they can't make up for poor script revision and direction. It also doesn't help that they took what is largely a dialog film and tried to add too much action. My advice go to YouTube and watch the original (B&W not colorized). Frank Sinatra, Sterling Hayden and James Gleason carried the movie with style. Direction by Lewis Allen was excellent. The original pulls all the pieces together better. I don't want to put any spoilers in, so I'll simply say that there was no reason to change Todds' character. And Pidge played better as a kid than a teenager.