Lack of good storyline.

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Sushi Girl. What a title for a film. Could go one of many ways, and the filmmakers here have wrought a neat little genre package that would make Tarantino applaud. It's bloody, pulpy, larger than life and a siful little cinematic treat. After a diamond heist blows up in the face of a group of hapless criminals, they gather in a dank warehouse to smoke out and eliminate the one who has betrayed them, inch by ultraviolent inch. Their leader Duke (the awesome Tony Todd) is a dangerous dude who will go to any lengths to obtain the stolen wealth. Fish (Noah Hathaway) is the punching bag for their little inquisition, taking quite a disturbing beatdown at the hands of Crow (Mark Hamill) the deranged lunatic of the group. Hamill steals his scenes, injecting a bit of his Joker persona and a whole ton of really scary energy into a psychotic performance that keeps the intrigue buoyant and electrically charged. The other two members of the group are two unsavory lowlifes called Max (Andy MacKenzie) and Francis (James Duval). The group doesn't know how to play nice, especially Hamill, and we are treated to delightful vignettes of profanity, distrust and extreme violence for much of the film. This all plays out while a nude girl (Courtney Palm) splays out on the table in front of them, covered in sushi prepared by a strange chef (Sonny China, who else). This seems arbitrary.. trust me, it's not. It's pure pulp with a vague horror vibe, due to the presence of such genre titans and the graphic nature of the violence. It's also got a brain in its head, a genuine story to tel which took commendable effort, and a cast that's game to have a little fun as they take a trip into a twilight zone that's part Reservoir Dogs, part Agatha Christie with just a dash of the macabre. Watch for a trio of hilarious cameos from Danny Trejo, Jeff Fahey and Michael Biehn, who are short lived in the film, playing the joke to the hilt.

I went into this film with reservations but as with all films, I wanted to give it a chance. I found it boring at best. The premise of the film sounded ridiculous to me but at the same time, somewhat interesting. It seems that the story was an afterthought and they just wanted to make a movie based around a nude girl, used as a sushi platter.It could barely hold my attention but I suffered through it in the hopes it would get better. It did not. There wasn't much to the story and I was not impressed with the acting. I agree with others; it is very similar to a Quentin Tarantino film. I, however, have a disdain for Tarantino's work so this movie was, unsurprisingly, a disappointment for me.In films like these, the story needs to be very engaging but the story in Sushi Girl lacked steam and left me with an unbearable taste in my mouth.It could have been better but it seemed that the focus was more on shock value than on the story, where it should have been. I really wanted to like it but now I know why it was in the bargain bin.

Fish has been in jail for six years, without his comrades from a diamond heist gone bad. He took the fall, he did the time, and now he's out.Duke, Max, Francis, and Crow treat him to a sumptuous dinner in a reserved room. The food is sushi, served off the body of a naked young woman. The woman has been trained not to react to what the guests are doing, and this probably served her well.Soon enough, the real reason for the meeting surfaces. The robbers had a bad accident: their van and a car encountered each other at speed. The gang's driver was killed, the other driver was dealt with by Duke, and the cops and firemen showed up quickly. In the process, most of the gang got away, but the diamonds seem to have gone missing. The ones who got away want Fish to tell them where the diamonds are.There are many flashbacks as the details of the heist are rehashed, particularly the events surrounding the traffic crash. When Fish refuses to tell his erstwhile partners where the diamonds are, they decide to encourage his veracity by force.Will there be a falling out among thieves? -----Scores-----Cinematography: 5/10 Perhaps this was done intentionally, as Tarantino sometimes does, but the visuals looked gritty and jumpy, rather sub-VHS quality. In other segments, the visuals were of reasonable quality.Sound: 9/10 No problems.Acting: 10/10 Mark Hamill, Tony Todd, and Noah Hathaway were great. In much smaller roles, Michael Biehn, Jeff Fahey, and Danny Trejo were fine. Cortney Palm also had a limited role, but it was pivotal to the overall effect of the film.Screenplay: 4/10 The last five minutes were just exquisite. On the other hand, the characters played by Michael Biehn, Jeff Fahey, and Danny Trejo seemed to be vastly underused. The worst part for me was the disposition of the diamonds after the accident. It should have been abundantly clear where the diamonds were, and the whole extended torture sequence was unnecessary.

SPOILER WARNING!!!! You've been warned. Sushi girl is a wannabe Reservoir Dogs as far as the plot goes. It looks like it wanted to be a love letter to Tarantino, but unfortunately it falls really short. It is like Sushi Girl's writers took every cliché' stereotype bond/batman/reservoir dogs criminal they could think of and mashed it up. Crow is gay joker, period the end, and not gay as in the character really likes the same sex, but gay as in its all a character device (like Silver from Skyfall) specifically to up the creepy factor of the villain by playing to homophobia. Duke is the Japanese fetishist/yakuza lover who insist everyone following the rules...I knew someone would be losing a finger in this film the second the word Yakuza was uttered and shared a scene with a cigar cutter. Then you have Max the blunt object, all violence and no finesse or intelligence, Francis the one who has softened because he has a kid, and Fish, the new guy, who went to prison and didn't roll on anyone he barely knew, stashed the diamonds from the heist, and who becomes the victim of the rest. (Honestly though the audience is the victim here)None of the plot makes any sense, it all is force funneled into making sure the story, realism be damned, arrive exactly at the plot twist the writers need it to. I mean why is Fish suddenly the most stoic person alive while being beaten to death, if he knew where the diamonds were, why not tell? You can't spend them if you are dead? The idea of him double crossing the guys he didn't roll on in 6 years of prison makes little sense. He could've rolled on them for a reduced sentence, put them all away, got out, and spent the diamonds. Similarly if he was loyal enough not to roll, why not split the diamonds with them? Or even just crack under the torture that was way over the top? Garbage character motivation and realism is why. Also, many uncontrollable events that no one could've planned for had to happen just right to arrive at the last scenes with only the Sushi Girl and Duke, with Duke paralyzed from tetrodotoxin from the blow fish. It wrapped a little too neatly and again makes the whole thing feel forced. This movie seeks to get over just by hitting the beats of over the top cliché's, graphic violence/torture porn, casting, and the fact that there is a naked woman in almost every scene. So 14 year old boys will love this, and no one else. To be fair, I enjoyed the plot twist of the Sushi Girl getting vengeance, that was pretty satisfying unrealistic or not, but it was diminished by the train-wreck that was the first hour I had to suffer through getting there. So all in all, I wouldn't recommend this movie, which is a shame, there is a great deal of wasted potential that could have been salvaged with a better story, more well written characters, and a premise that started out as more than a random joke idea of "Hey dude? What if a bunch of criminals were gathered around a Sushi Girl talking about their crimes?"