Reviews

I saw this on VH1 the other night with the new title "They Shoot Divas, Don't They?" Whether that was to distinguish it from the pretty bad movie, "Slow Burn" with James Spader and Minnie Driver, or to tie-in with VH1's "Divas" I leave for you to decide. It is a pretty standard psycho with an agenda flick that happens to be set in the music business. Jennifer Beals plays Sloan McBride, a Cher-like diva on the brink of turning 40 and desperate to have another hit in a market driven by teen Britney wannabes. Through a series of seeming coincidences, she gets a new personal assistant who is the abovementioned psycho with an agenda. The body count is pretty low-- just two or three, I think-- and the splatter is kept to a minimum (it is a movie for TV, after all), but it's reasonably well plotted and directed and it does seem to at least have a passing acquaintance with the contemporary music biz. Beals is the best thing about it though. It's worth seeing.

If I had paid eight bucks to see this in a theatre, I'd have more quibbles with it. But to rent it on 99-cent Tuesday made it a real find, a movie that sticks with you exactly because it doesn't try to explain itself.

Various characters find themselves in a cubic room with doors in each of the six walls, each of which leads to another cubic room, some of which contain deadly traps (razor wire, acid spray, flame throwers, etc.)A group of five struggles to find a way out before tension and suspicion do them in. They don't know who put them in the cube, really, or why, and neither do we; we're left to ponder the meaning. This is a real B-movie, done cheap (just one set!) with no-name actors, but the FX are good, the gore is tasteful, and the lingering paranoia is good enough for me to give this a genre-grade 7. If you liked "Dark City," which this somewhat resembles, check it out.

This is a perfectly fine, slightly twisted romantic comedy, but not so special that it should be picking up all these awards as Best Picture. Steven Soderbergh deserves more attention than he's gotten for his films since "Sex, Lies and Videotape" (even the mostly horrible "Kafka" had some interesting bits), but this really conventional film isn't it.

Although derivitative of Tarantino and especially of Carl Franklin's "One False Move," Kiefer Sutherland's directorial debut is quite self-assured. Kevin Pollak's character as a hostage who is strangely drawn to the lifestyle of his captors is terrific despite his formulaic "coming-around" at the end. Mykelti Williamson and Grace Phillips as Pollak's girlfriend are both revelations. Vincent Gallo is an unusual actor and definitely an acquired taste, but he works well here with Kim Dickens as his Bonnie. In all, a film you'll be pleasantly surprised with as a bargain rental.