People are voting emotionally.

Don't Believe the Hype

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

I have seen almost all of director Samuel Fuller's films and I know that to many he is a god. However, I have noticed that later in his career, some of his films were just too sloppy or had crazy premises that make them far from classics. While one of the other reviews is rather harsh for this film, I do agree that later in his career, Fuller seems to have lost his golden touch. I recognize none of his early genius in this bizarre and annoying film. This is certainly no "Steel Helmet" or "Pickup on South Street"! The film has a strange look to it--much of this was due to it being filmed in Lisbon. Why Lisbon?! And, for that matter, why have a lot of supporting actors that seem to really struggle with speaking English?! This doesn't look like a work of genius--just desperation to go to such efforts to get the film made. My assumption is that with advanced age and reputation for being cantankerous, this was the best opportunity he could get to direct. It's sad...and I wish he'd just retired after making "The Big Red One". Films like "White Dog" and "Street of No Return" just weren't quality products or up to his earlier standards.The film tells the story of an idiot musical star. Keith Carradine plays this idiot. He's on top of the world but insists on canceling his concerts and throwing away his life on a woman he just met--and who insists she is "not worth it". And, frankly, other than the hot sex, it's inexplicable why he would so actively pursue this lady--she ISN'T worth it. Ultimately, the lady's very controlling boyfriend and Carradine's agent(?!?!) work together to "teach him a lesson"--severing his vocal cords and leaving him for dead.Later, after a lengthy flashback scene, the film returns to the present day where Carradine is a homeless guy. He wakes up next to a dead cop and the police think Carradine did it. So, he's off to jail. The cops aren't subtle and spend their time screaming and hitting people. Not surprisingly, Carradine doesn't wish to stay and he rather easily escapes. There's more to it than that, but frankly at this point I was ready to call it a day.The problem is that although the basic idea isn't horrible, the characters make very little sense, the camera angles and camera work look sloppy, the music is far from great and the film comes off as loud, garish and annoying. No one is subtle or interesting--just loud and obnoxious. And, I think that Fuller thought that to be modern and relevant, having everyone curse and scream would do the trick...it didn't. The loudness and overacting might have worked years earlier in such great Fuller films as "Shock Corridor"...but here, it's just loud and overacted. Oddly, however, despite most of the supporting actors screaming and overdoing it, the leading man is, at times, a bit of a zombie. Wow...this is bad...really, really bad.

These reviews have lots of bad things to say about Carradine in this, but for me, he really made the film.He is called bland here. One person says he acts like he doesn't know what he's doing in this.I believe this is the point. This is a guy who was a rock star and then hit the skids and is a bum. And he doesn't really realize why.And then he becomes embroiled as a witness to a race riot, is suspected of a killing, and is generally tossed about, and he reacts to all of this as a person who doesn't quite understand, and yet is driven by a desire to get revenge on those who are ill-using him.This is the last film by a legendary director who never rose above B movies, but injected a quirkiness of his own. This isn't his best, but it is mesmerizing. It certainly is a violent film, but it isn't mindless. See it when you are in the mood for ridiculous plotting exquisitely directed.

After having watched a few Fullers, I found this DVD. One must admit that it is partly a wonderful movie, with a feeling of film noir or is it a " blue film" since the lightning is always dark and bluish? On the other hand, the music sounds terrible to my hears, and Carradine's character as a rock star looks incoherent, it blocks all possibilities of identification and empathy. Some "adults" bits are quite acceptable esthetically, namely those which actually happen; however, Mikael's ( Carradine's) fantasies and remembrances about his video clip gave me the impression that I had unconsciously changed channels and was watching a bad quality X movie. I think the bum part of Carradine's role is convincing; the stance Fuller takes at riots and racial issues is more complex than in "China Gate". Ideological issues are difficult to assess since there is theatrical edge to the film, at some point it resembles a musical, which soothes a little the otherwise unbearable violence.

The movie is wacky at almost every stage, and yet it undeniably works - whether through sheer naivete and flagging relevance or through simple genius, Fuller creates a totally unique and mesmerizing world of vivid colour, strange emptiness and weird evocation. It's clearly meant to be set in the US yet there's not a single interior or exterior which looks like it - Carradine plays an extremely anachronistic Europop star figure, yet the music actually has an underlying longing that's quite effective; the primal device of the black and white race riots is a distillation of Fuller's eternal theme - driven by big business, taking place in isolation on a street of no return, drained of all context or passion: the very first shot of a hammer blow to the head is incredibly jolting. All the noir elements are here, and the memory of better days hangs heavily over the plot - at the end you're amazed by how well structured it is, but it's the blinkered purity that produces the most mesmerizing results. Really memorable and weird.