You won't be disappointed!

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Gruff Richard (Lionel Stander) drives his heavily wounded companion Albie to the English seaside. He finds George (Donald Pleasence) and his flirtatious French wife Teresa (Françoise Dorléac) vacationing at their island castle and takes them hostage. As Richard waits for his gangster leader, George's annoying friends surprise them with a visit.This is black and white, and Roman Polanski's second English film. Jackie Bisset has an early minor role. This is an art house film with an eccentric blend of surreal comedy and thriller horrors. Everybody is a little off-center but not quirky enough to be funny. There is tension but it never really rises. Lionel Stander is terrific with his powerful presence. It does need George and Teresa to cower in order accentuate the terror but they are odd characters. They don't act right but it's not surreal enough to be intriguing. This is an eccentric indie.

Roman Polanski's third feature Cul-De-Sac is a more comedic take on an age-old premise: a couple (Donald Pleasance and Francoise Dorleac) are put upon by a criminal on the run (Lionel Stander) and the film becomes a power game of their interactions. It doesn't have much in the way of narrative, but instead builds itself around the ups and downs of their power struggles and the way they confront one another, as a whole or in individual pairings. It starts off well enough with a solid opening act that had quite a few laughs, mostly thanks to Pleasance, but after a while it began to wear thin.The entire thing relies on your interest in the characters and their games of power and sexual undertones with one another, but I couldn't have cared less about any of them so I found myself dreadfully bored for most of it. The final act raised my interest a little bit as everything goes wildly out of control, but it took too long for me to get there. Lionel Stander is a solid presence, creating a very uneasy feeling whenever he walks in the room, but Dorleac and Pleasence began to grate on my nerves rather quickly. I've always been a big Polanski fan and he still shows here his ability to create a complete atmosphere that is fully in tune with his vision, along with his fetish for isolating his characters in secluded locations, but I unfortunately didn't care about the characters in a film that is all about them.

When many hear Donald Pleasance, they immediately think of Dr. Loomis in Halloween. It is a shame that they have not seen one of his early roles where he does some fantastic comedy.He and his wife, played superbly by Françoise Dorléac, elder sister of Catherine Deneuve. This film was released the year before her tragic death at 25 in a car accident. She showed great talent here, and would have probably risen to great heights had she lived.Lionel Stander, who was derailed from his acting career for 10 years after being branded a communist, came back in time to do this film. He is hilarious as a dumb criminal Stander is best know for his long run on Hart to Hart. He is really funny.One of Polanski's best.

Cul-de-sac, like Polanski's first movie, is a movie about human relationships. In fact one could find many similarities between this movie and Knife In The Water. Dickie, a wounded criminal takes his dying partner, Albie, to a nearby castle and makes the two occupants hostages. Albie dies and Dickie has to wait for his boss, the mysterious Kateblbach, to come and rescue him. The tide has come up and the castle is currently unaccessible. So he has to spend the night with the couple, George and Teresa, waiting for rescue.In an ordinary movie, this could lead to a tense, suspenseful situation. But in Polanski's hands it becomes a study about human existence and the unpredictability of human behavior. For starters, there's no hero in this movie - George is a coward unable to take a stand; Teresa, disgusted by him, starts to get closer to Dickie. Dickie is a brute but he's hardly a monster: so long as people do as he says, he's alright with everyone. Many humorous and absurd situations arise from this relationship, as George and Dickie engage in conversations by the beach while Teresa bathes; or when Teresa, instead of running away, goes to Dickie to have a drink of vodka with him. People who expect their movie characters to behave in certain ways may be surprised, baffled or infuriated by this trio.My favorite part of the movie is when guests unexpected arrive at the castle and the couple and Dickie have to pretend he's their gardener. With the tables inverted, Teresa proceeds to abuse Dickie as much as possible. One can easily see the hatred and tension boiling inside Dickie as he struggles to keep up appearances.The tree main actors are quite good in this movie - Françoise Dorléac, Lion Stander, and especially Donald Pleasance as George. For me he had the most difficult and courageous role in the movie, that of playing a weak-willed, cowardly man who tolerates abuse after abuse. Such frailty is rare in cinema since it's not very appealing, but unusual as it may be it strikes a chord for how familiar it is.Once again I'm marveled at how Polanski manages to create a movie out of so little resources: a castle, three actors, and what else? Just clever writing, good camera work and imagination. Although Polanski has done better movies, Cul-de-sac has an undefinable quality that grips the viewer's mind and doesn't let go.