Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

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

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

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

What an odd film. The first ten minutes or so establish the ethos concisely. An Oriental woman enters Bill Pulman's office for a job interview. He asks, "Didn't Laura tell you I was busy and ask you to wait outside? Either she did or she didn't. If she didn't, I call down and fire Laura. If she did, you close the door and wait outside until I'm finished. Which is it?" When he's finished with his business (which is twitting his boss over the results of a football game) he asks the woman in and scans her resume. "So, Monica, you'd like to work here." "Michelle," she corrects him. "Hmm. So you're Chinese." "My grandparents were from Japan," she says. Pullman then draws out his denial of her application, relishing every moment of her humiliation, telling her, "I won't hire anyone who sits there and corrects me all the time just because I didn't memorize every goddam item on her resume." There is another terrific scene in those first few minutes, when Pullman visits the office of his Big Boss, Duke. (Everybody seems to be named Duke or Rick or Buck or Nick.) Pullman teases Duke about having lost the bet on the game and the two of them start playing grabass in this masculine way that high school kids do, ragging one another and calling names and jabbing each other in the ribs, chuckling all the while. However, after 30 or 40 seconds of this rough house we realize that the razzing is becoming more one sided. Duke -- Pullman's superior -- is now shouting all the insults while Pullman is groaning with mock pain. "I'm gonna kill your family and you, then I'm gonna take a red hot poker and shove it up your a** and cut off your b**** and set 'em on fire." Pullman (doing a splendid job) shields himself with his hands, says, "No, no -- not THAT!", and crawls under the desk while Duke follows him, still shouting threats.It's an extremely funny scene but there's an element of sadism in it too, a kind of Schadenfreude, since the main reason it's funny is that it's happening to someone else. It's the same reason we might laugh at some poor guy who realizes in a public place that his fly is open and quickly zips up. We wouldn't want to trade places with him. It's all the more humiliating for Pullman because his boss looks about 10 or 20 years younger than he is. Man, is that a degrading position to be in. I once applied for a job at a pizza place and was interviewed by a kid less than half my age. "Ever had any delivery experience -- sir?", he inquired.The movie follows a not uncommon trajectory, from whimsically amusing through seriousness to tragedy. I kind of wish it had stayed funny, because the tragic part doesn't really tell us much. We don't emerge from the experience epiphanied or anything. Basically, Pullman hates his boss so much, particularly after finding that his boss has been diddling Pullman's daughter, that he hires somebody to kill Duke. There is a mistake in identity and the wrong person is killed. Hello? The performances are all good, especially Pullman. I'm coming to respect him as an actor more and more because he can accomplish so much while seeming to do so little. (Listen to his phony groans through clenched teeth when Duke is tormenting him during that first scene. A perfect blend of pretending and feeling.) The dialog scintillates when it sticks to arrogance and humiliation. In the second half it turns rather pedestrian, but still -- that first half is very nicely done.The direction is efficient without being flamboyant. The score is unique. Without really paying much attention, I was able to identify only four instruments -- base, drums, guitar, and accordion. Not a quartet though. They don't play at the same time, and rarely in any combination at all. One rather lengthy scene is scored using only up-tempo solo drums. The only tunes I could discern were Christmas songs or variations on them.The movie has its weaknesses but it's an original effort. It imitates nothing that's gone before. The people involved should get a pat on the back, even if some viewers might find it a little simple in its message. If you are too greedy for material things, you will regret it later. I think the Greeks may have called this sin "pleonaxis." In this case the punishment seems to have been brought on by the Jade Emporer through a Chinese curse.

This movie was a little drawn out, but isn't life. I think that a movie that is action packed is a little far fetched. Life is not always full of action at every moment. There are the days that drag on forever as it may seem. In this movie, I think the boredom that some have spoken about is needed to get the full effect of Bill Pullman's character. The daughter, is any normal teenager who has an insane amount of money. Rick, stuck-up, secretive... Very well played by the young actress. The boss is just a joke. I work for a corporation and trust me, I can see some young kid like him taking over one day. The part where Sandra Oh curses Rick is, how can I say, a little underachieved. She rambles on and on about how he is a evil person. That kind of curse is just outdated. I think it was a bad part of the movie. The club they are in is cool. Spy cams all over. Kinda scary when you think about that aspect too. Everyone watching everyone. But then again, that is also life. Everyone is always watching everyone. The daughter is talking to the boss, via sex chat, unknowingly, and Rick finds out. She then goes to a Christmas party to meet up with the BIG BOSS and do the deed. The whole time the boss thinks the daughter is Rick's wife. Stupid him. Well, Rick was planning on having the boss killed that night, and it just so happens he tells the man who is going to kill him that the boss is wearing a yellow ski jacket and a Santa hat. Little did Rick know that she wore the jacket and hat after her and the boss did the deed. All I can say is just be careful when you plan things. She ended up murdered at the end and Rick has to live with the fact that he killed his daughter and paid for it to happen. Life is crazy.

This movie moved in such a quick and informative cycle I felt I couldn't spare 3 minutes to grab a feed bag and a bottle. I can't remember any movie I've seen lately being as captivating and quick.The cast plays the characters in an alternately despicable and delectable, very off-hand way. Who to loathe... more? Many characters are disastrous self-absorptions.Especially notable are the performances of Sandra Oh, Bill Pullman and Dylan Baker. I guess the most notable performance award from me goes to the guy who played Bill Pullman's boss (BIGBOSS), because I disliked that character so much I forgot to even look up the actor's name.Details, details, delicious details are all over this film. The constantly changing phone number on BUCK's business card. The changing wallpaper, the distant behaviour of the friend of Rick's daughter. Rick's office door opening in different directions in different scenes.This movie is worth every moment. I voted so high because I watched it on cable and I couldn't pause it and I wouldn't go pee.Frankly, I found it to be a very captivating movie full of captivating characters full of honest hope and blind faith.

If you go to the movies to feel good about life, to feel all warm and fuzzy about the world around you, then "Rick" isn't for you. However, if you delight in stories that revel in the darker side of human nature, that have a nasty sense of humor, then this incredibly dark comedy might be just the film for you.Based on Verdi's opera, "Rigoletto," editor-turned-director Curtiss Clayton brings to life a script by Daniel Handler, better known to audiences as the "Lemony Snicket" author. In "Rick," Bill Pullman plays the title character, a man who works at a company called Image, though we're never told what exactly he or the company do. His boss Duke, almost half Rick's age, engages in machismo talk and has a penchant for online chats on a porn I'm service.To reveal more would be to destroy much of the fun of this very wicked film."Rick" actually goes way beyond dark comedy. Pullman gains tremendous glee from playing someone loathsome. Come to think of it, with the exception of Rick's teen-age daughter Eve (played by the marvelously talented young actress Agnes Bruckner), there really aren't any likable people in this movie. And Eve, who's the only one who sees the good in her dad, isn't exactly squeaky clean. She gets her kicks by "talking" dirty on the Internet. Bruckner, whose depiction of an emotionally scarred high school student in "Blue Car" was one of last year's highlights, finds just the right mix of confidence and innocence to make Eve believable.Often, it is hard to be absorbed by a film where none of the characters seems to have any redeeming virtues. But, strangely, "Rick" manages to hook us. Mostly because we're initially intrigued by who these people are and why they behave so despicably. Watching Rick berate a woman interviewing for a job is uncomfortable. Yet, there's something hypnotic about the whole sequence.This is extremely broad social satire veering into the absurd. This film is filed with several odd moments. The interview aside, there's the initial macho gamesmanship between Rick and Duke (played by Aaron Stanford as a slimy creature, quite a departure from playing 15-year-old Oscar Grubman in "Tadpole"). Then there's Buck (Dylan Baker), who meets Rick in a bar where people spy on other patrons. Buck tells Rick he runs his own company. There's a funny joke about that when Rick sees Buck's business card."Rick" is by no means a perfect dark comedy. But it definitely has a strange way of keeping you interested in its characters. They may not be likable but, damn it, they're most certainly intriguing and captivating. If you're in the mood for something out of the ordinary and you relish films that dabble in morally decrepit people, give "Rick" a peek. I've seen better films this year, but this one will stick in my mind for a long time.