Suddenly

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.

I loved the situation. A small town, frustrated ex-military cop. But then the movie goes downhill pretty quickly. Story does not move at all. The end seems to be rushed. Climax is really tepid. Predictable and flat dialogs, the characters, especially the villains are not described in enough details. It feels like the director gave up halfway through the movie.

I loved the situation, a small, sleepy, snowy town. But the rest was totally so-so. The story had a great potential. It is sad to see it being wasted like this. The 1954 original was much better.

The actors also did not do justice. Liotta was just OK not very convincing. Erin Karpluk was good. Pidge and his grandpa were better. The rest of the actors were bad.

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 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 never saw Lewis Allen's "Suddenly" (1954), but I guess I just don't need, because I know a priori that it is an Oscar-winning film comparing to this atrocious remake made by an unskilled, dull and inept director that, besides being labeled as a movie-killer by making abominable, heretic and unintelligible movies, still get millions to produce plain pointless excrement.

Nevertheless, I swallowed an aspirin and, maybe taken a bit away to the fact Boll's last movie drew some fair critics, I finally had the courage to assist a movie made by this European quarreling psyche. Unfortunately my expectations weren't wrong at all: It was like to have an urge to commit suicide or to mutilate myself for being an utterly idiot.

Boll's cinematic masterpieces, according to him, 'Alone in the Dark', 'House of the Dead' and 'Far Cry' are all, cemented by virtually 90% of critics and spectators, a collection of rambling-disjointed narratives of absurdity, execrable directing, vile and poorly written scripts and an unbelievable populist egocentric paranoia product of a tormented mind.

This movie, for which it was presented with established actors, fails miserably in achieving something other than a mind-blowing overly median hogwash.

I really must go out and buy the original movie to make a sincere topic comparison and eventually assert righteously that Uwe Boll must pay in prison terms for brain damage to the public and serious technical incompetence. Even with Liotta and Purcell on the screen the movie drags on into a worn out monosyllabic clichéd and putrid dialog.

The story of 3 assassins posing as secret agents who find an excellent sniper spot (a house) to murder the US president is tantalizing enough to draw a good script, but with Uwe Boll, that's not the case: For Boll it seems the only person to sense something about the fake agents is an alcoholic, self-neglecting and psychically affected and sacked ex-marine who can't cope with his friend death years and years ago. Brilliant!

I really think there's not much more to say unless citing all the mumbo-jumbo and mediocrity that abounds in this Boll's vision of a film. Ultimately, dare me to advise you to spare your limited lifetime and patience and skip this for real - You won't regret, I CAN assure 100%.

PS-> Another priceless story is how I ended up seeing this "piece of art". - But please don't ask me to, I cannot tell, Boll can lawfully sue me or else invite me for a matching box until K.O.