rationalreviewer

Despite a decent cast, you can pass on this film without fearing you have left a significant gap in your personal viewing history unless you are an Agnes Moorehead fan The plot is based on ridiculously improbable coincidences that ruined the film for me. There was an obvious attempt at character development but again plausibility was sometimes a glaring problem. The film's best feature for me was was an accurate depiction of the 1961 ambience and a look at what an early 1960s film noir could have been. That was about the time I stared high school and it depicted a culture of cocktails and capitalist conformity that we rightly rejected. The other plus was a bravura performance by Agnes Moorehead.

As other reviewers have mentioned, the leading female role, Nikki, plated by Dina Merrill is worthy of an Oscar for miscasting. She is decades too old to play a character whose role in the plot is based on her youth. Merill's character appears as a woman of about 29 and in a long flashback at about age 19. She is not even credible as a 29 year old. Another actor who could get viewers to care about the 19 year old "Nikki" could have been a saving grace for the film. Merrill was OK as a woman who has been around the block a few times but not as a late teen on first round the block trip.

David Janssen played his usual character. Unfortunately that role suffered the most from poor development. A couple more more minutes explaining the inconsistencies in his personality could also have saved the movie. They tried to give some idea of what made him who he was, and that was good, but a minute or two more that may have been left on the cutting room floor could have made him sympathetic and believable.

This is the most over-rated movie on Amazon, that I have seen. There may be others more deserving of that title but, if there is, I haven't seen both the film and the Amazon rating.

This poor excuse for a film was made only because the director is the daughter of one of the Hollywood elite. She grew up as a rich brat and this film presents the world view of that worthless class.

The story is drivel. I can get into a good love story, or lightweight romance like this, but this one repelled me. I can only suspect that the viewers who rated it highly have psyches so controlled by the fairy tales they were poisoned by as children that they have no grasp of reality. Other one-star reviews explain the lousy-ness of the story fully so I will not repeat them.

The acting is mediocre. Scarlett Johansson has a very limited range as a performer, which could have worked if the role called for looking cute and not saying too much. This roll calls for a sophisticated, well educated, but shallow young woman. Johansson is perfect for the shalllowness, but fails the other two requirements. When I saw her similarly sub-standard acting in Girl With a Pearl Earring, I thought there might be a decent actor inside waiting to get out. Maybe I suspected wrong.

Bill Murray also has a limited range but that is all that was needed for his part. That could have redeemed the movie somewhat but the character is so thoroughly vacuous that he has nothing of value to offer other characters in the film or to the viewers.

The theme of inter-generational romance has been explored in many other films but seldom so badly.

I wanted to stop watching this movie after the first 5 minutes but felt that I had a duty to humanity to view it all so that I could write a review and perhaps save others from wasting an hour and a half. To reward me, since you don't know me, please perform some random act of kindness and dedicate it to old Rationalist. To honor me appropriately and consistent with my effort here, please make that act negative rather than positive. For instance, don't praise a shopkeeper for a lovely display, complain about the lack of a bike rack.

One reason I feel compelled to warn others about this valueless film is that I borrowed it from my local library. The video collection is heavily weighted toward foreign and art-house type films, which I like. The general releases are movies generally considered classics or adaptations of literature with some merit. So, I relied on the judgment of the Pasadena Library acquisition deciders to select this movie. Once again they failed me.

Spenser: Pale Kings is marred by second rate acting to a degree I found distracting. It's not horrible acting, just second rate. Since I was watching the film with consciously critical eyes I discovered something rather special. The acting is remarkably consistently second rate. It's not like the usual situation, in films like other things, where the quality varies. The acting is neither amateurish nor competent, it's just second rate, with a couple exceptions. Alex Carter who plays the state trooper, Lundquist, did capable journeyman level work. Beatriz Pisano who plays Juanita is either a terrible actor or the unfortunate victim of so much psychological damage she is incapable of expressing any sincere human emotion.

The author of the novel upon which this is based may be a good writer, but whoever wrote this script is not. I suspect that the director, and others, share the responsibility for a story that is made up of details that cover the entire range from improbable to implausible. A glaring example is the relationship that Spenser and his girlfriend have with the wife of the police chief. The chief's wife is hostile and antagonistic, as is the chief. After he is killed, she responds to the girlfriend's offer of sympathy and they instantly become friends and confidantes although nothing happened to explain such a remarkable transformation and there were no hints earlier to prepare us. It's jarring that this loyal wife would react this way to the people who are hounding her husband rather than regard them with even greater suspicion. The book must be much better. The viewer would be hard pressed to recognize any human interaction in this movie as one they have seen in real life.

There are some rants in the film about the evil of ethnic stereotyping. That happens in the context of investigating a crime in an old New England mill town with a large number of immigrants from Latin America. The film-makers show how they come out on that issue by portraying all the Hispanic characters as criminals, liars, or whores. Maybe they were trying to cover all bases by appealing to both bigots and decent people.

The one positive comment I was planning to make was that it showed some attractive New England locales, but I was wrong. While researching this review I learned it was shot in Canada. This film has some nice shots of Paris, Ontario in 1993. If you don't want to see that, do something else with 90 minutes of your life.