Why so much hype?

Excellent but underrated film

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

This is something of a black comedy ie. some comedy and some serious bits; and some nasty/violent things made funny. A few clever scenes; some good suspense.Sound like anything else? Yup, it's LBT (Low-Budget Tarantino). The dialogue isn't as clever or fresh; but neither is it as pompous and pretentious as QT's work.And it doesn't make believe that it's anything creative and new and different. Just a dumb (unable to speak) 10-year-old girl being pursued by a hired killer.Hurt has developed a style of mumbling and swallowing his words - bored with the movies he's offered? Jennifer Tilly is just ordinary. Leary is OK but he's not in it for long.It's just something OK to watch late at night.

The whole thing begins as a nice thriller, but turns out to be a really bad piece of scriptwriting. You soon find yourself guessing what's gonna happen next, being right most of the time... the story isn't thought through and depends on a bunch of improbable twists. The immature humor doesn't match the rest of the film's atmosphere at all and the final is simply awful, AWFUL! And, oh, is there a point? The mute girl being a metaphor for innocence and stuff... well, there might have been potential, but her turning into some kind of Bruce Willis flattens her character to the depth of a sheet of paper. The family conflict shines through nicely, but isn't well developed. Still, it is entertaining at times and I could imagine worse.

The problem with this is that the movie wasn't intended to be. I can't imagine one would finance this movie without reading the script. My better half somewhat enjoyed the movie and couldn't understand why I was laughing hysterically, especially at the finish. The only thing that really disappointed me was the fact that the little girl didn't regain her voice due to the trauma of riding a gurney through the streets of Amsterdam. William Hurt's voice WAS weird, and I also like Jenifer Tilly despite of her obvious acting talents. Overall, one of the most poorly crafted movies I've ever ever seen. I put the 2nd "ever" in there to get my ten lines.

I'd had this in the DVD player 5 minutes and realized I'd hired it before. Oddly, I couldn't recall how it finished. Twenty minutes in and I knew why I didn't know how it finished--I'd not been able to sit through it all before, so this time I made a sandwich and sat down to suffer it in its entirety.I was going to blame the director for messing up a good script, but then I realized that it was a writer/director auteur type thing. Some work well, others are catastrophically bad. The plot was sort of OK, the execution awful and the pathetic attempts at humour were totally out of context in such a movie. So was the gratuitous violence--sort of like a Year-11 schoolboy story.As far as acting goes, Francesca Brown aquitted herself quite well; the rest were average to bad. Maybe they just needed the money.Most unbelieveable scene (and there were many): The model aircraft posing as a real plane in the opening scene.Someday I'll be smart enough to make a list of forgettable movies that I must not hire when I go to the video store. I think I'll start that list tonight.