Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

Awesome Movie

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

This movie tries to take the 'Groundhog Day' idea into darker territory, with three recovering drug-addicts in rehab getting to live a bad day over and over again, until, presumably, they get something right.Besides the dark edge, this movie also promises interesting developments by having three friends go through it together in different ways. At first, and after the confusion, they have wild fun with it and even hold up a liquor store. But then two of them start introspecting when they have to deal with their families and a suicidal jumper. The third, however, seeing the endless hate his father has for him, decides to give up and give in to the dark side of his insecurities, and turns to a nihilistic life of brutal crime, since there are no consequences to his actions anyways.So it starts becoming interesting, and in a sense, they become god-like beings that can get away with anything, except that the more conscience-laden duo now also have a 'super-villain' on their hands to deal with, while the regular world suffers the consequences.But then it stops being interesting, fizzles out, and just ends.Their attempts at stopping him never become creative (for example, they don't even bother finding out who starts their day first by a few seconds, thus giving that person a slight edge). Their time-loop and personal dramas are solved with only a couple of lazy pop-psychology revelations and confessions. The development of the bad guy is way too fast and extreme - it could have worked if they had to repeat a hundred times or so, but to turn into a suicidal-rapist-murderer within 3-4 days is a bit much. And their 'thoughtful' introspection about consequences for their actions ends abruptly when one guy says: 'I need it to mean something'. Way to go, Schopenhauer.And so on. It just doesn't develop its ideas in any way. And then there's the ending where the bad guy gets to repeat himself, while the rest move on. If you think about it, since none of them see any meaning in their lives and its only about whether they get caught or feel bad for their family, the ending means that the bad guy gets to live it up without consequences, and the good guys have to live with their consequences and bad decisions. So even the faux-moral ending is a product of muddled and lazy thinking. Lazy movie-making does not produce great movies.

Three delinquents experience the same day over and over again. So what do they do? Not much, really. The key is "Carston! Seven thirty." And so we go again. But from this enjoyable concept nothing clever or insightful ensues, and we end up with a midwestern family values story. Just like that other movie, but without Bill Murray's delightful cynicism.What would it be like to live without consequences for your actions? A bit dull, mostly miserable, do the same. So, not much different from real life, which technically makes this a documentary.This really needed some perverse behaviour from the characters, however foul according to the taste of the intended audience. Without the perversity it simply failed to explore the concept. The good guys were good, the bad guy was bad. Completely dull.Pace, direction, editing all excellent, but concept cooked as flat as a pancake. I did like the actress with her slopey nose and woolly hat.

What do you do if you're drug addicts and you experience Groundhog Day? You squander all the opportunities that repeating a day can bring you and go completely psycho. You continue to show just how bad a human being you are until the day stops repeating and normality returns.There, I've saved you 90 minutes of your life.This deliberately drab, depressing film, takes the Groundhog Day premise and crams as much sadness into one day as possible - nothing good ever comes from the protagonists actions. Events simply spiral down into total chaos and disaster.Sadly, where the premise breaks down is that, although the protagonists remember the repeated day, they also do a lot of mind-altering drugs during the repeated day, and the question of how their memories are affected from one day to the next is never addressed. How can you restart a day when your previous memories are warped by alcohol, heroine or cocaine? When you wake up the day after flooding your body with chemicals with no continuing effects, how does that alter your view of the world? Only by addressing this question could this film have been a worthwhile contribution to the wash, rinse, repeat cycle of film making.In the end the cycles appear to stop repeating, time resumes it's normal course, no explanations are given, and nothing much has changed. What started the repeat cycle? Don't know. What stopped the repeat cycle? Don't know. What happened to the protagonists? Don't care.What happens next? Not depressed enough to want to find out.

Repeaters is a familiar idea - get to replay days over & over until you get it right. But I liked this one as there is an interesting take on how different people see this gift/curse differently. Makes you think what would I do with a second chance? Even though the theme is basically the same as Groundhog Day that's where the comparison ends. Best moment - girl tight ropes on a bridge - pretty tense. Worst moment - when Mike goes over the edge at the end (pretty predictable). Actually if you are interested in this theme read REplay by Ken Grimwood - a new slant on the theme - much better than this movie. (Or Stephen King's 11/22/63) DonB