It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Not a terrible movie. The title is ironic. Luke Perry and wife Ashley Judd lead anything but a normal life. He's a diligent cop and she works in some sort of electronic assembly plant. The problem is that she becomes erratic. She starts boozing it up and taking drugs. She gets moody. She goes on wild spending sprees and gets them into terrible debt, while the distracted Luke Perry is so absorbed by her that he alienates his partners and is finally fired. She shows up late at work and is truculent with her boss and after a period in rehab she's cashiered as well. Perry and Judd have furious arguments over expenses in their modest apartment. What they have going for them is her occasional lucid periods and a tendency to rut like two chimpanzees in heat. In the print I just saw, some of the more lurid glandular encounters were cut, as were some scenes of self mutilation, and that's too bad because here the nature of the sex actually plays a part in the story.Well, they have individual interests as well. Judd is a feverishly rapt amateur astronomer and Perry would just love to open his own book store. Perry has a bearded friend with whom he takes friendly motorcycle rides, and Judd has a lesbian friend from work. That's about it for this unhappy couple.In order to get them out of debt and to keep them together, Perry takes to holding up banks. As an ex-cop he knows how to do it. He fibs to Judd and tells her that he's putting in overtime as a security guard. When she improbably discovers his real source of income, she's not at all shocked. She finds it exciting. She's overjoyed and is finally able to achieve orgasm with Perry.At her insistence, Perry takes her along on his next heist, but she's so elated she shoots a row of holes in the ceiling before he manages to yank her through the bank's door.By this time it's clear that Judd is a Class A bipolar. She's right out of DSM IV-R. She's glum and given to cutting herself all over. The next minute she's wildly gleeful or sometimes irritable over nothing. Her judgment is impaired. Compared to Luke Perry, though, she's a chrome dome. He's one of the stupidest men who ever walked the earth. At one point she leaves him to live with her lesbian friend. When he begs her to come back home, she lays everything out for him in plain language, but it all bounces off him. Her truths are as ping pong balls.It's not an unintelligent plot, reminiscent of a classic cheap noir called "Gun Crazy" with John Dahl and Sparkle Annie or whatever her name was. (I'm too lazy to look it up.) It's the kind of crazy story that might really happen to two screwballs.Ashley Judd does a good job. She was superb in another crime drama, "Heat," as Val Kilmer's wife. She's demonstrated the limits of her range as an actress elsewhere but in this film her performance is unimpeachable.Luke Perry is another matter. He seems to be a nice enough guy but as an actor he's sufficiently lightweight that he should stick to the small screen where "presence" matters less. He had the same problem that David Caruso had, but I can't put a name to it.Judd's oddness is accurately shown. When the couple visit some relatives for a barbecue, instead of sitting at the table and drinking a beer with the adults, she immediately wanders off and kicks a ball back and forth with the family's child, ignoring the usual rules. Nothing dramatic, just askew. But otherwise the direction is flat and uninspired. (When Judd speaks at a group therapy session, she's shot from a high angle for no discernible reason.) It's kind of disappointing, coming as it does from the director of "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer."

An incompatible couple try to find a normal life. Differences of opinion constantly lead to outbursts of anger and threats of ending the partnership. Pam (Ashley Judd) is an irresponsible woman who makes up for the lack of excitement in her life by indulging in drugs and alcohol. She is certainly not content to be a housewife. Policeman Chris (Luke Perry) on the other hand is a level-headed husband who pampers her in every material way. He is soon in dreadful debt.The turbulent life-style of these two main characters occupy the screen most of the time and we feel there is no hope for either of them. Indeed their incompatibility is enough to put one totally off marriage. Their shouting matches are quite savage and somewhat depressing.When Chris resigns from the police force and discovers a new way to riches and living life to the full, excitement takes over and the characters are fired with a new enthusiasm. Pam insists she be a part of this new game and for a time she becomes a new woman.The characters are well drawn, the car chases quite exciting. This change of mood spices up their sex lives clearly depicted in a series of bedroom scenes.The final sequences are dramatic and exciting so stay with the film to the end. The old saying that "Crime does not pay" is clearly delivered and understood.

It's no Set It Off. It's no Thelma and Louise. The whole thing smelled of an A&E cable movie or at best, a CBS made for TV movie. The whole time I was asking myself and the television set. Why doesn't he get rid of that woman. When he bought the house, that was the last straw. It wasn't entirely painful to watch, but certain people should stick to 90210.

I must admit that seeing 90210's Luke Perry in Normal Life's leading role did not inspire me, but after watching this film I was pleasantly surprised. The foreshadowing scene at the very start of the film gives a sense of foreboding doom that pervades the rest of the story. Pam (Ashley Judd) is a woman torn between living on the edge and having a normal, storybook life. Chris (Luke Perry) longs for such a life, but also seems to be excited by Pam's wild side. He goes from cop to bank robber in a first successful, but then futile attempt to make things right, which only seems to excite Pam more. Eventually their luck runs out, and the inevitable ensues. The last 15 minutes of this film are the best part with some surprising twists right near the end.