actionfilm-2 Yes, negative review here and sure I know, based on a true story, but there are countless true stories out there that actually lead somewhere. The filmmakers thought there was something to be said here, Myself I'm not so sure. Here we get a pair of unstable and socially inept human beings that possess a twisted "love" for one another and we are asked, by way of the filmmaking tone and approach, to sympathize with their "plight". Problem is it was impossible (for me) to warm up to these two even in the slightest. Were the character's interesting? No, not in today's light. Obviously I'm in the minority here as most of the reviews posted loved this film. Now I enjoy nihilism as much as the next person, but this film's attempt to play on one's heartstrings was lost on me here, especially as the music turned sad and sappy at the finale with the pair's predictable fate. A better approach, without sacrificing much in the way of Hollywood's "true story" element, would have been to have celebrated law enforcement's part in protecting the public from their criminal existence, at the very least I'm sure the pair's neighbor's would like to thank the police.

phd_travel Good cop marries unstable woman. Through financial difficulties he is led to a life of bank robbery - a modern day Bonnie & Clyde.Ashley Judd and Luke Perry both act very well. How come I never heard of it? I am a fan of hers. Luke is quite suited to the role he doesn't look ill at ease as he did in some post 90210 movies. Actually haven't seen him in such a dramatic role before. Ashley is quite lovely and plays this screwed up trashy complex character quite well. She shows range. Quite moving and it is timely given the recession now. Kind of a fable of the American dream gone wrong. A modern day American tragedy. Based on a true story - so the plot is realistically bizarre. Quite touching and intense. Watch it. This movie should have been more famous.

CMUltra Normal Life is simply about the illogical love Chris (Luke Perry) has for Pam (Ashley Judd).From the love-at-first-sight moment you know his attraction is there but, other than the physical appeal, you can't understand why. The first time he sees her, she's drunk and having a fight with what seems to be her boyfriend. She smashes a glass and cuts her hand. She's definitely attractive (Judd always is) so Chris overlooks her odd behavior and plays the knight in shining armor role as he tends to her cut.The attraction is immediately so strong that he tracks her down at her workplace to see her again. He's a cop. When he sees her the second time she's sitting in her car outside her job smoking pot. He overlooks this as well and they go to an isolated area to lie in the grass and look at the stars. She's heavy into astronomy.She initiates sex with him and, during the intercourse, he innocently says she's "crazy." She goes berserk, breaks off the copulation, runs screaming to her car and very nearly runs him over. He explains that he meant nothing bad by the comment and, once again, accepts her behavior.This is the theme that continues. No matter what Pam does, Chris loves her. He's not blind. He recognizes Pam's attitudinal deficiencies and points them out to her. He struggles to help her change and become a better person. But when she doesn't change he must either leave her or change himself to fit her life. He does the latter.Chris is not only a cop when the movie begins but also a straight arrow. He does not condone cutting corners, or police brutality. However he ignores his strict code of ethics when he finds Pam smoking pot the first time. That lets us know right away that, while he will try to change her, he is willing to sacrifice all of his personal standards to be with her. By the end of the movie he is a bank robber and a murderer.Normal Life is a neat snapshot of what folks like Chris go through when they allow another person to become the end-all, be-all of their life. They begin to define their own life by the other person. They do not have the strength to let go. Some glimpses of Chris' parents are given but it is incomplete. We do not know if the family is truly dysfunctional or if there are difficulties exacerbated by his father's illness.Perry was enjoyable as Chris. He played the character with a realistic edge. Chris was typically reserved and soft-spoken but Perry made it clear that there was high tension underneath.Judd (one of my favorite actresses) was not so adept with Pam. In order to portray hysteria I think you have to go there, otherwise the acting is painfully obvious. That's what I saw here. In other scenes she did fine as she took Pam along the edge of a normal life. When Pam needed to turn on the charm, Judd excelled. The further Pam went the other direction, the more the performance suffered.

hall895 Normal Life starts out with great promise, with a great burst of energy right at the start. But that energy fizzles out very quickly and what we are left with is a rather bad movie. The film follows a husband and wife who happen to rob banks for a living. The movie begins with their last, ultimately failed, robbery. We see the husband arrested and the wife lead police on a high-speed chase as she attempts to get away. And then we go back in time, back to the beginning, to see how these two ill-fated lovers met and what brought them to the rather unfortunate situation we have just seen. Turns out the husband, Chris, as played by Luke Perry, is a former cop. And the wife, Pam, as played by Ashley Judd, is completely and utterly nuts. A whole team of psychiatrists couldn't help this girl. But Chris thinks he can and he'll do anything to make her happy. Suffice to say their relationship doesn't quite work out as he envisioned. A happily married couple they are not.Eventually Chris loses his job as a cop and starts robbing banks. When Pam discovers what he is doing she is rather excited and suddenly much more enamored with her husband than she had been. And she wants in on the action. So they start robbing banks together and eventually we end up back where we started at the film's beginning. Back where it seemed the film had some promise. But Normal Life never lives up to that promise. It's terribly scripted. Much of the dialogue is utterly ridiculous. The acting leaves much to be desired, most notably with Perry going over the top again and again in his attempts to convey anger and frustration. He's constantly over-emoting and at times it's so laughable it's hard for the viewer to stifle a chuckle. Which is a problem because this is not meant to be a comedy.The seemingly endless confrontations and arguments between Chris and Pam become rather monotonous after a while. It's just the same thing over and over again. Every few minutes the two leads have a fight about something. It's like clockwork. It's also exceedingly dull. The story never moves along. We just spend the whole time watching these two people bicker and watching Pam have one psychotic episode after another. OK, their relationship isn't quite working out, we get it. Move along, please. It's a frustrating movie to watch because it started with such promise and then just does not work at all. You get the feeling it should have been a lot better than it is. As it is it's a rather tedious movie.