Strong and Moving!

Pretty Good

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

What bothers me in films like this is not the things that don't work in it. It's the thing that could have been done. It's not so much the visual lack of power and effectiveness of it, but the total mental poverty that surrounds it.They picked up two mildly interesting actors, with credits on their hands and assigned them to this total mess, relying that the fact that they're in makes the whole think work on the financial side.This is a total mess, a weak story, about some honest people fighting pharmaceutical interests, against all odds, the 'Fugitive' type. Pam Grier is assigned the extra role of being her past roles, associated with racial concerns and feminism. Both she and Hauer are cashing their checks. They could be doing better things.Trying to get away with such a film is as much a deceit as it is the radioactive tests in the film.My opinion: 1/5 http://www.7eyes.wordpress.com

Considering the cast, and the big corporation against the people story line, the makings of a decent movie were all there. Pam Grier is investigating a series of murder's and links Rutger Huauers character to them, as he's connected to one of them by way of a jilted and bitter romance.He also happened to give her professional advice (He's a Dr) that turned out to be less than life saving. His best friend also works for a big chemical company edging for promotion working within 'the womens medical' dept. All this coupled with the fact that a man resembling Hauer was seen leaving the crime scene.Pam visits the good Dr to see if she can jog his memory and the two end up getting along very well. Its at this point everything starts to fall apart, the film tries to be too complicated, and Griers script requires her to spell everything out for the viewer, but instead of helping coast the story line along, her role in fact stilts the films proceedings, making everything seem slow and boring.Hauer as usual, plays his part perfectly well, but doesn't have the necessary bulk to his role to really do anything other than plod along with the whole dull affair. Basically, the script strives too far into what really should have been quite a simple, enjoyable film. If your the kind of person intent on seeing this because your obsessed by seeing everything ever filmed by Grier or Hauer (and you know who you are)then you'll be mildly disappointed, everyone else steer well clear of 'Wilder'.

As soon as I picked this one of off the shelf warnings were going off in my head ("Bad movie alert! Danger! Danger!). Call me ridiculously optimistic, or just plain dumb, but I still rented it just the same. Seventies blaxploitation icon Pam Grier ('Coffy', 'The Big Doll House', 'Jackie Brown',etc.) is a favourite of mine, as is Rutger Hauer ('Blade Runner', 'Flesh & Blood', 'Salute Of The Jugger'), and the prospect of seeing them act together was just too much for me to ignore. The packaging made this look like another tired serial killer "thriller", the kind that should star Michael Madsen or Eric Roberts or James Russo or Chris Penn and go straight to video. But it is in fact even less interesting than that. The movie quickly degenerates into a lame conspiracy mystery, and smells very much like a failed TV pilot. Grier plays a one dimensional sassy cop, Hauer a very dull Doctor who is initially her leading suspect. The chemistry between the two is zilch, and my goodwill towards both performers is still not enough to forgive this absolutely awful waste of time. I'm straining myself trying to think of anything it all about it to recommend viewing it, but coming up with a big fat zero. Avoid this one at all costs.

*This review contains miner spoilers*As time goes by, people look to the past decades and usually laugh. They laugh at the clothes that were worn, the lingo that was used, the music that was popular, and the dances that were performed. They also look (and often laugh) at the style of movies. Few decades seem to get more flak than the 70's (though there has been a recent surge of 80's bashing, something I am not very fond of since I liked the 80's). Cinema of the 70's pretty much belonged to gritty cop thrillers brought on by the likes of the Dirty Harry and Shaft and many of their clones. Some of these were good movies with things that make you chuckle in retrospect. However, the recent remake of `Shaft' should have taught us that making a throwback to the past set in the present is not a good idea and `Wilder,' made in the same year, is more proof.Few actresses can be associated with the 70's as much as Pam Grier, the title character of this movie. Detective Della Wilder and her partner, Harland Lee (Romano Orzari), are pretty tough cookies working the streets. They are good cops, despite Wilder's regular bending of the rules that gets her in hot water with her boss. They get assigned the case where a woman was strangled and her body about to be taken away when the killer was interrupted. The main suspect is a doctor (Rutger Hauer), the former lover of the victim. As Wilder, certain of the doctor's guilt, begins heavily interrogating him, a second murder occurs and evidence starts to show up that it is not the simple work of a serial killer. Instead, Wilder discovers that the two murders, along with numerous disappearances, are linked to an experimental drug administered by a pharmaceutical company, and that this company has some dangerous political connections.While Grier and the story are pretty good, there is a lot about `Wilder' I did not like. For one, the movie's twists aren't very exciting. A twist is revealed and it leaves very little affect on you. It is also strange how Wilder's tough persona warms up to Hauer's character's very blunt passes. There is also a really terrible, unneeded subplot involving Wilder's quarrelling with her rude and abusive neighbor. But the worst stuff about `Wilder' is Gibbon's 70's frame of mind. His style just isn't very fun to watch. He does things like pepper the whole movie with 70's-like music that feels incredibly wrong. He also does annoying transition tricks like freeze-framing the end moment of a scene for a few seconds before moving to the next scene. That's very awkward, but not quite as awkward as an editing trick of splicing different takes of the same scene together. It looks so disjointed and wrong, like no individual take was correct so they just meshed them together to try to make it look stylish. The worst moment of this occurs in the movie's worst scene within the worst subplot: Wilder has broken into her neighbors' apartment to console the battered wife while the drunken husband shouts at the both of them. As the goofy scene splicing is occurring, you can see things in the background change, like the busted-open door suddenly being closed! Even aside from all this, `Wilder' still isn't up to par because you lose patience with it by the second half. And with that feeling of being a flashback to the 70's, you start to realize not only why we laugh at the things of thirty years ago, but why those same things should be left forgotten. Zantara's score: 4 out of 10.