Reviews

This one could have easily fell into the same trap of so many low budget slacker comedies. Cliched gamers sitting on the couch, cocky sarcastic losers, sexual innuendos, etc. Thankfully they actually avoided those things. This movie tends to teeter on complete farce and romantic comedy. It works on that level. There are some laugh out loud moments like the empty Vegas club with the pulsating music, and some brief tender moments when the golfer tells him how much he loves the book, and he 'gets' it. And it's sort of fun watching the story play out. So there are some redeeming factors. But where this movie, and so many others, fail is that they present what is basically a depressed sad sack loser who never says anything funny, brilliant or really insightful, yet for some reason two hot babes, one is a Laker girl, are able to see through all that, see him for what he is and they fall for him. I think that's very lazy writing. Anyone can fall for anyone, but there ARE reasons. There was nothing in this dude that any women would really like, let alone an upper class babe or a hot dancing Laker girl.

A watchable vanity project for the writer, director, lead actor but whether it leads to anything more substantial is highly debatable, since the characters were mostly cliches, the situations were full of 'just happens to' moments, like a commercial actor on tv just happens to look exactly like a spoiled trust fund kid who just happens to be in an unfortunate accident, and the actor just happens to be paired with a gangster type gumba who just happens to want to be an actor so they can have a bond that becomes a plot point... on and on. His skill at playing two diametrically opposed characters that he himself created should have been more pronounced, but he cant get beyond the one dimensional limitations he wrote for them. An EXTREMELY nice, thoughtful, helpful, caring guy who seriously, not sarcastically, uses a word like 'lovely' when speaking to a women vs an EXTREMELY obnoxious, narcissistic spoiled brat who belittles everyone around him and tows bikini babes around like they are his pets. That being said, he is watchable and likable as the nice guy and is assured some nice lifetime movie channel (is that still on?) cheesy romantic comedies in the near future.

The comedy wasn't funny, the drama and the resolutions were all predictable, and most of the performances made me feel uncomfortable. Not sure who owed who a favor, but this should have never been a feature film. It's basically an average Lifetime movie, but gets a slight bump only because of Jennifer Aniston, who always pulls off these safe familiar roles with some spark and even some depth, but that isnt enough to help save an otherwise horribly predictable and flat script.

This movie never would have seen the light of day without an A lister to head the cast as actor, writer and director. Poorly executed on every level. 1) These guys are supposed to be geniuses, but how do we know? Easy, Franco/Max reminds us of it throughout the film ("I'm a genius") and he solved a fairly easy math problem (easy for anyone who is good at math), and his brother is a surgeon. None of that really works and it makes all the other observations about how a genius deals with being a genius hollow an empty. 2) Max is the life of the party and the guy everyone likes yet the movie shows someone who is just obnoxious, cocky and annoying to watch. 3) The drug scenes dont offer anything insightful or new whereas a movie like Requiem for a Dream shows the upside and the down side of extreme drug use. Anyone who has done meth knows that if you are up for 3 days, you are down for 3 days. And the doctor using prescription drugs seems like they took that right out of Requiem with the mom and her diet pills. 4) The characters are mostly cliches, and poorly acted. It plays like amateur hour. Even Franco seems like he's reaching. And to be honest, he works best in dumb comedies (though I thought he was good in 11 23 63) 5) This movie would have worked better as a satire. Or a meth version of Pineapple Express. But it doesnt know what it wants to be and ends up falling flat on all sides as it tries to go for a deeper meaning.

The only real problem I had with the film was that they didn't get into the whole Beatles / Revolution / Apocalypse angle enough. I would have liked to see more of Charlie talking about his ideas and philosophies. You never get a clear picture as to why these kids were so attached to the hippie guru.

I think that in order to get a more complete picture of the murders etc, you need to view this along with the original TV movie.

As far as this film not telling us anything new? Well, it's been over 30 years since the murders. There ISN'T anything new to tell.

If some of the dialogue is taken from the Manson documentary, that is great. These are the words of the people who were there so that only seems appropriate.