S_Craig_Zahler
Exact rating: 8.25The pulse of this movie is subversive and menacing, and even though there are many, many great laughs, I think the classification of it as a comedy is wrong. It never feels like a comedy. In terms of tone, it is something like the pilot for Twin Peaks and a Mamet play and an Odets play, but with some strange off off off off Broadway claustrophobia and seventies nihilistic horror. It displays a collapsed and paranoid urban environment in which people are combative with words and isolated by them.I feel it should be essential viewing for any writer, as it contains four of the best-- if not the actual four best-- monologues I've ever heard in a movie. Arkin and Sutherland have amazing monologues that are only marginally upstaged by those given by Gould and Jacobi.I laughed many, many times (as did many people in the sold out screening I attended), but when it ended, the haunting and thoughtful core of the movie lingered more than did the comedy.A rich and allegorical piece that deserves serious study and accolades.(I saw a 35mm print of the movie at Film Forum, N.Y.)
Chris Davis
What do you do when the constant onslaught of muggings, defective public services, obscene phonecalls and general disenchantment of the city has crushed your once-promising career as a photographer to the point where you only take pictures of excrement - for which they still give you awards? What do you do when people beat you up just because they notice you, and across the city people are being murdered in their hundreds by unknown assailants with no apparent motive? Why are they doing it? And what, finally, do you do when the one woman you have found whose optimism remains undefeated by all this is shockingly and savagely murdered in your arms, at the very moment you hesitantly tell her that she's made you begin to feel again? This marvellous, blacker-than-soot satire solves all these puzzles with an answer that seems to have put off many viewers with its callous cynicism: why - buy a gun and start shooting people yourself! There's much more to this - the film suggests - than simply joining what you can't beat. More, indeed, than simply fighting back against the incoming bullets. The implication is that - alone among the city's miserable, oppressed citizens - the snipers who are picking off strangers in the streets are actually having fun. The rest are just targets.Brilliant, hysterical and shocking by turns, with spectacular performances all round.
Matt
I asked the clerk at my local video store to suggest a comedy from the 70's on VHS as my DVD player was broken. He recommended Little Murders and got a glazed over look in his eye and an idiots smile on his face, obviously reminiscing over a scene in the film. That was enough for me to want to rent it, and I'm glad I did. The acting in this film is outstanding, the highlight for me was Alan Arkin playing a Dr. Strangelove esquire police officer and of course the scene with Donald Sutherland as the minister. The film holds up remarkably well for having been filmed over 35 years ago, it must have been ahead of it's time when it came out. Aside from a few slang terms that were definitely from a by gone era, the film could easily take place today. All in all worth the effort if for nothing else than an outstanding cast of Arkin, Sutherland and Gould. Did it get any better than that acting wise in the 1970?
mdm-11
Elliot Gould is stunningly attractive, which is one of only a few reasons why I watched this insane film all the way through. Each of the characters introduced are in their own right neurotic or uniquely nuts. The only fairly sane person is the young woman who falls in love and marries Gould in order to "change him". The brief appearance of Donald Sutherland as a very progressive minister, who prides himself on the high failure rate of the ceremonies he performs is amusing, as he frankly insults everyone gathered by pointing at their peculiarities, causing an eventual riot.It takes the film more than half of the running time to get a close up of the "little murders". The most shocking moment is when a blood-drenched Gould takes a subway ride, his visibly near-death appearance raising not a single eye-brow among the many commuters. A middle aged woman matter-of-factly announced that she was shot at, the bullet stopped by her her shopping bags. "Open up, I have leaking groceries". Bizarre! An irate police detective investigating the random murder spree is one of the "bigger nuts" in the cast. WOW! If you enjoy "shock value", then this film is for you. To me, the entire cast was made up of zombies who wander about their existence and can't be bothered by anything. The final scene is the culmination of bizarre occurrences. See for yourself, but for me, this was definitely a one-time-view.
AD
