For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

An Occasional Hell was a watchable film that never really went anywhere.I thought Tom Berenger was going to be the killer, teaching a class on the subject, victim's wife asking Berenger to solve it having seen his name on a document in the victim's possessions, her thinking he is the killer. It was a given that they were going to get sexual, but as for the killer just being the guys on the land shooting them, that was completely bland but also surprising to me that this is all the writers had come up with. They were really digging a hole for the body out the front of the house, really. My prediction would of made for a hell of a lot better film. The acting was fine, just nothing much to work with. Kari Wuhrer doesn't really get to play a character here, she is briefly in the start then only in Berenger's imagination. The fact that it is his imagination, you would think her appearances wouldn't be so dull. Why the hell is he imagining her up a tree? It is also odd since he had never met her in the first place.

An Occasional Hell is one of countless cable TV crime melodramas that start to blur together if you've seen enough. They don't often have high budgets, and as such usually only contain a few elements: a handful of actors, a murder mystery, deception, eroticism and very little in the way of fancy special effects. This one has a solid lead in Tom Berenger, who can make anything watchable, and great supporting players who pitch in as well. The story, or lack thereof, is where the problem arises. Berenger plays an ex cop and forensics wizard turned college professor, who is hired by sultry widow Valeria Golino (remember her from Hot Shots? Lol) to solve the murder of her husband and his hot young mistress (Kari Wuhrer), who has vanished. It turns out the mistress may have been involved with drug runners (random) the state troopers get involved and it's all one big mess that neither Berenger nor the plot can seem to figure out. There's a cynical lead Trooper played by a snarky, laid back Robert Davi, and other assorted people including Richard Edson, Ellen Greene, Geoffrey Lewis and a kooky Stephen Lang, who shows up in flashbacks as Golino's eccentric civil war enthusiast husband. None of it makes all that much sense or seems to flow in a way that's believable, but Berenger makes it somewhat worthwhile, as do that other players. Just below average stuff.

BUT - I wanted to thank John Gartner of Portland for his hilarious (and sometimes educational) comments! I'm not sure which Berenger film I saw first, but he has warmed the cockles of my heart (to be genteel) from the first. In this flick, the shot where he reveals to his lover the dirty little secret underneath his shirt was worth the whole movie! - See, we gals can salivate over just a hint of the rest of what's there - or maybe it's just me, I'm an easy mark for a certain type of... ahem... torso, shall I say? But I'll never understand why guys are even attracted to that Daisy Mae-type critter - so obvious, so over-the-top; and here, she was really, really annoying, and just wouldn't go away! I, for one liked Berenger's deceptively easy-going southern man characterization. It doesn't have to be revolutionary if it works. As for his crying scene, I didn't think it was bad at all, as it was sudden and unexpected. To me, it was his lover's reaction that came across as forced and unconvincing.What I like about this actor is that he often plays roles as what I consider a real man - he's a man's man, yet fully capable (sooner or later, often gradually) of connecting with a woman in a palpably tender way. If you think about it, there aren't many actors who can achieve this. They're either too intense at being tough to switch gears believably, or they're too obsessed with being proper at all times...sorta like a lot of actual people...So, I guess I'll not heartily defend the script or the plot, etc., but I will vouch for Tom Berenger. In my book, he reliably adds quality to any film.

This will be a "Why" review which will then provide some "Answers". Why: does the college teacher teach a class from an elevated proscenium stage? Answer: The location manager of the film forgot to book a classroom on the day the scene was to be shot. College graciously allowed them to use their theater for a couple of hours. Why: are some of the students in their thirties? A: The "main" student in the scene, an older man, was chosen because he's related to one of the producers. The director, seeing him at lunch with his producer friend, realizes that he will stick out like a sore thumb and therefore tells her casting person to cast most of the class with, errrrh, older actors. Why: does the Berenger character, a former cop for god's sake, act like a virginal nincompoop when he speaks to almost anyone else in the film? A: B., without a strong director, he directed himself and decided to play dumb-naive Southern. Why: does the missing waitress appear from time-to-time as a fantasy-image? A: to show audiences that the prof is a "famous writer" who desperately needs a muse......to write true crime crap yet! Why: does the scene with the muse, riding on the external front of prof's car, have the background moving backwards? A: because the director, cinematographer and script supervisor forgot or didn't know that when you have a camera axis change from scene to scene what appears forward-going will project backwards. Why: does the color of the prof's car change on a car surveillance sequence? A: See previous answer and add property master, teamster and key grip to the answer. One of these people should have caught the error Why: and how could the town's newspaper know, the day after the murder, that "the waitress" was in the car with the victim? No one saw them together. A: a thing like this will happen to a hack writer grinding out a script under time pressure. Why: does the prof. keep injecting a yellowish fluid into his arm? A: Maybe his body doesn't provide enough urine for his every six hour evacuations and so he has to add it to his system. Why: didn't the savvy ex-cop, investigating a missing person who was present at a murder, make the connection that a huge hole being dug by two retards (set in the South so of course common folk are all perverted, repressed morons) near the site of the crime scene take days if not weeks to think that it might be a place to bury another murder victim. (This burial site is next to the murderer's house which is located near huge swamps which would be perfect to get rid of a body; oh the inbreeding that takes place Down South and the damage to the intellect!.) Much, much more but only time for one more Why. Why was this movie made? A: They thought with Berenger in it they could market it into profitability. As if that would be enough given the illogical script they were planning on filming. Too, he probably got more money than they wanted to spend and started cutting costs in many ways that unfortunately turned up on the screen.