NateWatchesCoolMovies American Perfekt is a disjointed yet darkly compelling little nightmare of a road movie, a dusty ode to bowers of the American southwest left unchecked and decayed, populated by wayward souls with perpetual heat delirium, vixens, psychopaths and hustlers alike, who saunter through lurid story lines that often end in bloodshed and madness. In the vein of stuff like Oliver Stone's U-Turn and Kalifornia, we once again pair up with some extremely off colour characters as they navigate both the tangled web of highways that lace the States as well as the human capacity for greed, lust and heinous physical violence. The characters, and actors for that matter, who populate this stretch of highway are an especially bizarre bunch, starting with Robert Forster's vacationing criminal psychologist Jake Nyman. Forster is quite the unpredictable guy, usually found in calmly benign protagonist roles, yet just as capable of stirring the pot with evil antics. Here's he's opaqueness incarnate, driving from one place to another until he runs into two sisters played by another couple of acting hellcats, Amanda Plummer and Fairuza Balk. Jake is basing each decision of his trip upon the flip of a coin a-lá Harvey Dent, a tactic which simultaneously causes trouble and indicates how unhinged he might really be.Plummer is weird and Balk is weirder, but neither as weird as David 'Professor Lupin' Thewlis as an awkwardly placed character who seems to exist just to jump into a scene and throw the mood off kilter. There's others running amok too, including Geoffrey Lewis, as well as Paul Sorvino and Chris Sarandon as a pair of state troopers who serve as comic relief. Forster is scary here, playing a guy who is psychologically hard to pin down or get a read on, and he's got some dynamite scenes with Balk in the third act, the two talents lighting up the frame. It's pretty far south of coherent though, mostly just these freaks terrorizing each other and engaging in puzzling romantic flings that only make sense to them, I suppose. If feverish, borderline abstract, sun-stroked neo noir is your thing, go for it. You can certainly do worse than spend a certifiably bonkers ninety minutes with this terrific bunch of actors.

brown93553 I would love to be able to find the left out footage from certain scenes filmed in my grandmothers house for this movie. The DVD does not have them and this would be really great if I can get them. Great movie love Amanda in all her films!Crazy film from beginning to end and having it so close to my home area was so interesting. Loved it and if you like weird you should watch it.Robert Forster was great and some of what he played in shocked me. He is a really nice man to give you a autographed picture for my mom who just loved him. I personally was to shy to go out and meet Amanda but loved watching all the filming.

davidhillberg I would like to have all the footage as shot from the start to the finish of American Purfkt. There were many times where the scenes that are not seen beyond the final cut come vividly to my memory .the gas station shot,of the coin that stood up on end after a toss,the true romance on the trip by Amanda and Robert, or when the 9mm fell apart in Chris's hand while the two other were hanging from the rafters,or when the barn burned down and the hurried prep to the new barn across the freeway,or how Ferusa kept loosing her sunglasses in the strangest places, Paul Sorvino's heated anger while viewing my redirected Shot gun clearing of the store . or the dog in the trash can scene or the beer bottle that flew from payroll into the pool parallel to all of us waiting in line,or dolly Dan and Bill Wages slippery seat incident .39 days in the Palmdale aria and 6 for the wrap. I miss them all.Included were the pooI side chats with Ivan .I last met him at the Russian knights film festival.. If you look real hard you may have a quick glimpse of me in the barn. I would have gave more to the vote If the edit was a little different and that the scenes shot that were not included over the top cop chase scenes with Paul Sorvino.

flightoffancy I'd heard so many different opinions about this movie. At first it sounded like just another psycho-killer road movie (although with a cast of some of the greatest actors around) but then it got chosen for the Cannes film festival and won a bunch of other 'serious' awards. Anyway, one night my mom and dad saw it at a festival and when they got home they were arguing like mad - my dad (who hates EVERYTHING) called it a masterpiece - my mom said it freaked her out and shouldn't have been made! After that I didn't know what to expect but I knew I had to see it. Well, tonight I did and oh my God, it turned me upside-down. I wouldn't go so far as to call 'American Perfekt' a masterpiece, but it's smart, funny, beautifully acted and directed, and has moments of such straight-faced hilariously chilling brilliance that it made me remember why I love movies. I won't try and explain the plot in detail but Amanda Plummer plays a woman lost in the desert after her car is driven off the road by a mysterious car. She gets picked up by a criminal psychiatrist and a strange romance develops between them based on making all their decisions on the flip of a coin. Plummer is better than I've seen her since 'The Fisher King' (and even more beautiful) and Robert Forster is AWESOME! Better even than 'Jackie Brown'. David Thewlis is alternately funny, creepy and downright sad. And watch out for Chris Sarandon, too, as a gentle Deputy to Paul Sorvino's gung-ho Sheriff - a great performance that reminds us why he got nominated for an Oscar once (Dog Day Afternoon). The gorgeous Fairuza Balk is also excellent in a really intense performance much more mature than the usual flashier stuff she gets asked to do. Yeah, 'American Perfekt' starts off slowly but only because it's lulling you into a false state of security while it's crawling under your skin. And writer/director Paul Chart pulls it off without resorting to being 'above' his audience ie: despite all the clever different layers to the film, you never feel like it's trying to prove how smart it is - also, everyone really looks like they're having fun. All in all, 'American Perfekt' isn't so much a psycho 'art film' as a really neat and original movie that's been 'artfully made'. Give it chance and don't be afraid to laugh at how nightmarish it becomes. A warning to the faint-hearted, however - although Chart keeps the sex and violence fairly low-key, it has a habit of coming out of nowhere and is presented in such a matter-of fact way that it WILL stay with you (just ask my mom). There's another great score from Simon boswell, too ('Shallow Grave', 'Trainspotting').Now, where did I put that shovel ....?