Save your money for something good and enjoyable

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Sandwiched in between his first two "Evil Dead" movies is filmmaker Sam Raimis' "Crimewave", a silly, over the top tribute to film noir and especially slapstick comedy. (Film buffs know that Raimi is a big Three Stooges fan.) It may be a little much for some people, but it does have a lot of energy, and spirited performances.It begins as Vic Ajax (Reed Birney), the ultimate nerd / patsy, is about to be executed for a series of crimes. He desperately pleads his case that the real perpetrators were a demented pair of exterminators / hit men, Faron (Paul L. Smith) and Arthur (Brion James) who had initially been hired just to eliminate the business partner of a man in the security business. As schmucky Vic stubbornly tries to woo the gorgeous Nancy (Sheree J. Wilson of 'Walker: Texas Ranger'), he ends up being terrorized by the gargantuan goons.Like a lot of comedies, "Crimewave" does lose a bit of its momentum after a while. Fortunately, things pick up again for an exciting climactic vehicle chase. Overall, the movie is extremely well cast; Raimis' old pal Bruce Campbell (also the co-producer) has a recurring bit and is so funny the viewer will wish that he had more to do. Also in the cast are TV star Louise Lasser, veteran film producer Edward R. Pressman in a rare acting gig, Richard Bright, Antonio Fargas, Julius Harris, and long ago Three Stooges co-star Emil Sitka. Smith and James are hilarious and fun to watch as the antagonists, although in real life Raimi and company had their problems dealing with them: James had a drug habit during this period and Smith, supposedly believing himself above the material, gave a performance disliked by the filmmakers so much that they dubbed him for the duration of the movie.From beginning to end, this is an effectively wild and (fairly) unpredictable affair; Raimi co-wrote with his fellow directors and friends the Coen brothers. The Coens appear as reporters, with Joels' wife Frances McDormand playing one of the nuns and Raimis' brother Ted in a bit as a waiter. They all make this a very easy to take diversion that at the very least is certainly never boring.Seven out of 10.

A nebbishy guy is on the run from the cops after a couple of hit men frame him for their wild crime spree in this dark and quite funny action comedy from early in the careers of the Coen Brothers. I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. The plotting is sharp and inventive, and the action is fast moving, with Brion James and Paul L. Smith stealing the movie as the hit men. The two young lovers who get inadvertently caught up in the intrigue are more off-the-rack as characters and thus less interesting than their antagonists, but then again, the villains always get the best material. Everything in the movie has a slightly amber hue. I'm guessing that this was meant to suggest the yellowing pages of an old pulp novel. Certainly, that is what is being both constructed here and spoofed at the same time: Pepsodent clean good guy / good girl couple in over their heads, nasty villains driving the unrelenting action, sudden violence erupting out of nowhere. It's all pretty entertaining.

After reading the other reviews of this movie, I have come to realize that this is a love it or despise it kind of movie. I fall into the latter category. That being said, I have absolutely no idea why so many people love this movie. I am a big Sam Raimi fan, and a marginal Coen Bros. fan, but this movie is a complete disaster. It misfires on so many levels. The writing is atrocious, the directing is awful, the acting is terrible, and the sound is the worst of all. Some movies are so bad they become good, but this movie doesn't even reach that mark. If somebody had told me the script for this movie was written in three hours and production took four days, I would believe them. I really can't stress enough how terrible this movie is. I understand that Raimi and the Coens were going for a comic book-y feel, but they have failed miserably. This movie never should have been made.

The first of two cinematic collaborations between Sam Raimi and the Coen brothers ("The Hudsucker Proxy," on which Raimi was Second Unit Director, is the other), this hilarious movie could have, SHOULD have, been a lot funnier. The story behind why it ISN'T is just as wacky as the flick itself: After the unexpected success of "Evil Dead" in 1982-'83, Embassy Pictures, which had released "Escape From New York," among others, contacted the young Sam Raimi about possibly directing a comedy written by two up-and-comers named Joel and Ethan Coen. Raimi read the riotous script and was eager to put it on film, keeping in close contact with the Coens so he could capture the zany spirit of the script intact. Operating on an extremely tight budget, and with constant interference from the studio, "The XYZ Murders" (the film's original title) was finished sometime in 1984 -- and promptly shelved. Never liking or understanding the humor of the movie, the executives at Embassy (being pressured to find a hit because the studio was floundering) told Raimi, "No, this is another one of your CULT movies, we don't WANT that." (These are not, by the way, my words; this is all from an interview in "Fangoria" Sam Raimi did in 1985 or '86.) So, the studio, trying to keep afloat, re-edited the final cut of the movie, releasing it as "Crimewave." It did not, of course, work, as Embassy Pictures went bankrupt that same year, but not because of this film -- Embassy was finished long before they released this, actually.If there was some way Raimi and the Coens could, I wish they would go back to this movie and either remake it or re-release it in its intended form. "Crimewave" was good, but you could tell it had been butchered (which gave it its uneven tone). In the "Fangoria" interview, Raimi confessed he regretted the way "The XYZ Murders" turned out -- so why not re-do it now that he can probably do anything he wants (thanks to the "Spider-Man" series)?What a shame that a struggling movie studio took a great, unique, funny movie and turned it into a curiosity. I'm sure, as we all know, THAT never happens anymore.