Powerful

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Idealistic and compassionate cop Chris Anderson (an excellent performance by Luke Perry) marries the beautiful and alluring, but extremely troubled, unstable, selfish, and self-destructive Pam (superbly played with gut-wrenching anguish by Ashley Judd). When Pam's constant spending puts them in a severe financial hole, Chris resorts to robbing banks in order to pay off their mounting bills. Director John McNaughton, working from a sharp and incisive script by Peg Haller and Bob Schneider, expertly explores the grim underside of an extremely dysfunctional love gone seriously awry, the dangers of falling for and becoming involved with the wrong person, and how a bad person can have a profound toxic effect on another basically descent person while firmly grounding the bleak, despairing, and nihilistic story in a totally plausible everyday suburbanite reality. The two leads both do sterling work: Perry's Chris makes for a touching and sympathetic protagonist as he does everything he can to make the incredibly messed-up Pam happy while Judd brings a castic humor, raw energy, and fierce intensity to Pam that positively bursts off the screen. Moreover, there are sound supporting turns by Jim True-Frost as Chris' loyal friend Mike, Dawn Maxey as Pam's smitten lesbian coworker Eva, Kate Walsh as Chris' concerned sister Cindy, Michael Skewes as the antagonistic Officer Swift, and Tom Towles as Chris' sickly dad Frank. The uncompromisingly downbeat ending packs a powerful emotional gut punch. Both Jean de Segonzac's polished cinematography and the moody score by McNaughton and Ken Hale are up to speed. A real bang-up sleeper of a grim and haunting movie.

I'm surprised to see so many positive reviews for this movie. This is the first movie I've seen in a while with no redeeming qualities. It's a shame that I caught this yesterday afternoon on TV. I wasted time watching this garbage when I could've just watched something else.The protagonist of the story is Chris Anderson portrayed by Luke Perry. Anderson is a good cop and overall a good guy. One night he meets a young attractive blonde in a bar. Always a great place to find the girl of your dreams. She's screaming and cursing (what a dream) at some guy who was lucky enough to get out of there. Anderson on the other hand isn't so lucky. He approaches the woman who has cut her hand from a broken glass. Anderson plays the knight in shining armor and helps her. They have a slow dance and she tells him her name is Pam. From the start, Anderson should've known there was something up with this dame. Don't get me wrong, Ashley Judd is a beautiful woman, blonde or brunette. But once you get to know Pam you'll wish you didn't. Anderson drops Pam off home and he decides to see her again. The more the movie goes on, Anderson gets to know Pam and the movie makes less and less sense.Pam's behavior gets more and more neurotic and you realize along with Anderson that Pam is damaged goods. But for some reason, he loves her and wants to help her. Chris ends up asking Pam to be his wife.He never really does help her. He just keeps beating a dead horse. Our idealistic cop turns into a complete idiot. He takes someone who is mentally ill and completely out of it. He thinks that by marrying her and making her his wife that is going to help her. Not only does Chris do nothing about her illness, he also turns a blind eye while she does drugs and drinks. As the marriage goes on, Pam gets sicker and Chris gets dumber. Pam goes to the store to buy a special telescope to view an eclipse. Instead she comes home with a knife. Instead of being worried he's angry that she spent $500. He comes home one night and sees that she has cut herself all over. His solution is to buy her a dog. Whenever Chris has Pam around his family it is obvious that she doesn't know how to interact with people. Chris gets mad and yells at her. When Anderson's father dies he tells Pam to get a dress and make sure that she's there. Pam shows up at the funeral parlor dressed like she's ready to go roller blading. Still Chris does absolutely nothing to help her. This is the woman in trouble that he was going to save and he doesn't have a clue.The couple have financial trouble and they are barely able to live in the shack they're in. Chris loses his job as a cop and we are never told why. Later Pam loses her job because of her drug use. Chris comes home to find Pam with a gun to her head. By now, Anderson has to be a complete idiot to not see that his wife is suicidal. What does he do? He continues to leave her alone and tends to their money problems by becoming a bank robber. Like I said, as the movie goes on it makes less and less sense. There is even a ludicrous ending. Why bother to continue? This movie is very difficult to watch. Whoever made this has to be either crazy or just stupid. Poor Ashley Judd, who has a great body, is stuck shedding her clothes for no good reason. I've never seen a movie with such unnecessary nudity. Ashley Judd is filmed naked in many scenes just for the sake of being shown naked. Whoever made this movie must have something wrong with them.I'm sorry I ever saw this movie. I hope I never come across it again. I almost didn't even want to waste my time writing a review, but I figured others should be warned. Don't even waste your time on this garbage. Ashley Judd fans especially should stay clear of this. The very talented and very attractive Ashley Judd is wasted. Actually, she is exploited. Luke Perry fans should stay clear of this too. Sometimes it looked like he was giving a decent performance when he was yelling, but I wouldn't be surprised if he was really yelling because he was sorry he got stuck making such a horrible and worthless movie. Stay clear of this trash.

I thought this was a great movie. Regardless of Luke Perry looking like he isn't much of a tough guy in most of his roles, he's still a pretty good actor. Ashley Judd is a phenomenal actress and was perfect, as usual, in her role.For being a fact-based story, I was glad to see that it wasn't Hollywood-ed up, for lack of a better word. I just wish that when they make movies like this, they get more detailed about it so that the viewers can understand how being in love could drive someone to do what these two people did.Anyway, I think people will enjoy this, if only for the fact that Mrs. Judd is unclothed through much of the movie...lol

Normal Life starts out with great promise, with a great burst of energy right at the start. But that energy fizzles out very quickly and what we are left with is a rather bad movie. The film follows a husband and wife who happen to rob banks for a living. The movie begins with their last, ultimately failed, robbery. We see the husband arrested and the wife lead police on a high-speed chase as she attempts to get away. And then we go back in time, back to the beginning, to see how these two ill-fated lovers met and what brought them to the rather unfortunate situation we have just seen. Turns out the husband, Chris, as played by Luke Perry, is a former cop. And the wife, Pam, as played by Ashley Judd, is completely and utterly nuts. A whole team of psychiatrists couldn't help this girl. But Chris thinks he can and he'll do anything to make her happy. Suffice to say their relationship doesn't quite work out as he envisioned. A happily married couple they are not.Eventually Chris loses his job as a cop and starts robbing banks. When Pam discovers what he is doing she is rather excited and suddenly much more enamored with her husband than she had been. And she wants in on the action. So they start robbing banks together and eventually we end up back where we started at the film's beginning. Back where it seemed the film had some promise. But Normal Life never lives up to that promise. It's terribly scripted. Much of the dialogue is utterly ridiculous. The acting leaves much to be desired, most notably with Perry going over the top again and again in his attempts to convey anger and frustration. He's constantly over-emoting and at times it's so laughable it's hard for the viewer to stifle a chuckle. Which is a problem because this is not meant to be a comedy.The seemingly endless confrontations and arguments between Chris and Pam become rather monotonous after a while. It's just the same thing over and over again. Every few minutes the two leads have a fight about something. It's like clockwork. It's also exceedingly dull. The story never moves along. We just spend the whole time watching these two people bicker and watching Pam have one psychotic episode after another. OK, their relationship isn't quite working out, we get it. Move along, please. It's a frustrating movie to watch because it started with such promise and then just does not work at all. You get the feeling it should have been a lot better than it is. As it is it's a rather tedious movie.