Look, I know this movie is held in very high regard for a lot of people. The purpose of this review is to give my honest feedback not to hate on it just for the sake of hating. I have watched this movie no less than three times over the years and this past Saturday I decided to give it another go so I can give it an official review.
Annoying Aspects
There are scenes which feature nothing but the two protagonists grunting and sniffling when they are waking up and getting out of bed or walking around.
Cheesy techno music played during the action scenes. I know this was all the rage in 1999 with movies of that era like the Matrix and Swordfish doing the same thing. But, if you are trying to make a stylized gangster action flick, techno music should never even be an option.
The two lead actors are not very good at all. Sean Patrick Flanery was the stronger of the two but both were not good. Norman Reedus was just plain bad. His face is not made for the big screen. His eyes are too squinty and he does not emote well.
The Rocco character was at 100 mph the entire movie. He wasn’t funny, he was annoying. The scene where he is yelling at the two girls on the couch after he killed their cat was so cringe I cannot even put it into words.
The gangsters were cartoonishly bad. They were caricatures of gangsters. Half of them were Russian and the other half seemed to be Italian.
The premise that these guys were forming their own league of vigilantes seems to be ham-handedly strung together. In actuality its just three clowns that seem to get very lucky in shootouts.
The final major scene of the movie where they execute the gangster in front of a courtroom of people isn’t cute or funny. It’s terrorism.
The Positives
Willem Defoe was pretty great actually. The scene where is recreating the crime outside of the suburban house to the backdrop of classical music and acts frantically was very entertaining. But, his character devolves in a clownish buffoon in the second half of the film. Still, this scene is brilliant, but to me was almost ruined by the protagonist’s over acting and ad-libbing toward the end of the clip.
Final Thoughts
Look, I know the movie was supposed to be a little goofy. I get it. They brought in Ron Jeremy for Pete’s sake. But the execution felt all wrong and I found myself rolling my eyes no less than a dozen times. I give this movie 35 out of 100 potatoes. The only reason it isn’t much lower is because of Defoe’s performance. He, singularly, made it not a complete waste of my time.
I understand why some people like, or even love this movie. It checks a lot of the same boxes a film like Pulp Fiction did. But to me, the entire thing was a farce. It was a parody of a good vigilante vs. gangster flick. It sucks.
