Knox D Alford III (knoxiii) I'm so glad I watched this movie. First take a look at the cast. There must be around 20 celebrities in it. Wayne Kramer directs. There are about 3 vignettes that begin from a small town pawn shop. The first scene really summarizes the concept of business leverage as it relates to the pawn shop experience of negotiation. I had too many favorite characters to list. It is a unique movie with fantastic acting. The action sequences are over the top. The comedy is great. The drama somberly deals with serious issues. It's just a down home good time in the heart of Dixie. Every character is what I would call quirky, which makes for a rich spread of personalities. Completely off the wall and irreverent, I highly recommend it with 7/10 stars to start off your weekend in a great mood. Knox D. Alford, III

zif ofoz Just discovered this movie and decided to watch as it is listed as a 'comedy'. And a very dark comedy it is! There are some really disturbingly funny scenes, but I found the balance of the film to be a sarcastically allegorical comment on life in America. Why the previous reviewers missed this is a surprise! Throughout the entire story director Wayne Kramer has offered to the viewer symbolic remarks on religion, politics, and economic life in the American laboring society.First we see the pawn shop - in America everything is a commodity that can be sold and bought - nothing has real value and value is always marginalized when the seller is in 'need'.Second Kramer offers the three rednecks who, on the surface are religious, in symbols only, and have no idea why 'they believe' because they are too consumed with destructive self indulgence. Then when Vernon is left for dead a 'savior' appears not to save him but to offer the chance for revenge. In America it's just believing that makes religion true, not understanding and living it.Third Richard discovers 'the ring' in the pawn shop and seeks answers as to how it got there. Kramer again shows us how property is valued in the social order. Material things along with humans are gifts for capitalist overlords. Shaw represents the ownership society. And when they offer favors to the 'working class' they are to be obedient and grateful, as seen with the caged women for Shaw's pleasure and the 'number one' caged girl who refuses to leave because she gets 30 minutes of television a week in 'the house'. Richard is the liberator and freedom fighter that American's always reject and destroy.Fourth Kramer gives us Ricky, the fourth rate Elvis impersonator, and here Kramer sums up the movie. Americans want to be 'a star' but few have that kind of talent outside of being a big fish in a small pond. And thats where Ricky finds himself. His image is compelling to the locals in that unnamed small southern town and they willing follow him around! Ricky wants a barber to even his sideburns and must choose between two identical barber shops. Kramer smartly symbolizes the American political system here as there is no real difference between the two leading parties (Democrats & Republicans). But the locals think there is a difference between the two barber shops and when Ricky picks one over the other mayhem erupts in the street. In America perception is what drives the choices. When the choice really doesn't exist! When Ricky gets to perform at the carnival he is so unprepared and untalented the locals reject him. Then when he accepts the offer made by the street preacher (Mephistopheles type character), Ricky's whole image changes when he starts singing 'Amazing Grace'. Suddenly the local towns folk see him as bright and talented because he has accepted their Christian values. Then the naked and filth covered cage women show up and wrap themselves in the American flag. The image of justice and freedom shine as long as Americans have patriotism and God. Shaw returns from the dead to claim the filth covered women and a new woman. They all follow him out. The locals are too star struck to notice what's happening right before them. Kramer shows how Americans cannot escape the capitalist system (Shaw) because society will always give into religion, patriotism and those who control the money.The film closes with Harry (little man/big truck) entering the pawn shop to teach Alton a lesson but JJ quells him easily and then it's business as usual for Alton. Harry is the collective conscience of America and it's small and easy to overlook, but it's always there.Pawn Shop Chronicles is a triumph for Kramer - it's perfection start to finish!

brando647 PAWN SHOP CHRONICLES is…weird. Now that I've watched it twice and shown it to a friend to get an outside opinion, it seems the general consensus is that it's not a great movie. I'm not even sure it's a good movie. But it's weird and you find yourself drawn into the events as they unfold to see where it will lead to next. I don't know that all the comparisons to PULP FICTION are well founded. It's got the same non-linear storytelling with multiple stories happening at the same time and often interacting with each other, but it has none of the style and substance of Tarantino's original masterpiece. I suppose it could be said that PAWN SHOP CHRONICLES is a loving homage to it but it's nowhere near the same level. If anything, it reminds me more of the CREEPSHOW movies and it even includes pulp magazine/comic book title screens for each of the three stories presented in the film. This is an anthology movie with each of the three stories starting in a small pawn shop in a fictional Georgia town: a couple of white supremacist meth-heads plan to rob their dealer, a man discovers a clue to his wife's disappearance several years prior, and an Elvis impersonator prepares for a performance at the local county fair while coming to grips with the fact that his life has fallen to pieces. And it all starts in a little pawn shop run by slow-witted Alton (Vincent D'Onofrio) who passes the time chatting with his friend Johnson (Chi McBride) about all things meaningless.The film has a lot of problems and they're not all easy for me to pinpoint. One issue didn't become clear until the very end when the end credits began to roll and I noticed an executive producer credit for Fred Durst. Yes, that Fred Durst. I suppose it made sense, considering the movie. This is the sort of movie you'd expect from a man who put out an album called Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water. On a technical level, the movie feels very basic. There a couple clever transitions (the filmmakers had a theme of using reflections/mirrors to transition between scenes) but the majority of the movie is very dully shot. A lot of quick zooms and extreme close-ups ramp up during action scenes but there isn't much else. The writing feels derivative at times too. Regardless of whether it can be compared to PULP FICTION, you can tell that the movie was certainly inspired in some part by it. There are attempts at Tarantino dialogue but most of them fall flat. It has a few good ones, particularly a scene between Raw Dog (Paul Walker) and Randy (Kevin Rankin) as they discuss why exactly their white supremacists, but a good deal of it falters. There's a lot of it in the scenes featuring D'Onofrio and McBride where they'll chat about porn or whether it's all right to make fictional characters black, but it feels forced. It's not helped with D'Onofrio's weird, stunted line delivery. I'm not sure where he got his inspiration for his strange speech pattern in the movie but it was distracting. And, finally, the movie ends on the weakest story of the series. The first tale got you pumped, the second upped the ante, and the third one nearly bored me to death. The tale of a horrible Elvis impersonator desperate for success fills space with a lengthy performance of 'Amazing Grace' that, while it ties together a lot of other elements from the film, nearly put me to sleep. The movie rejuvenates itself just before the end credits with a fun little scene in the pawn shop but the damage was done and it left a bad taste that tainted my final opinion of the movie.For a movie so small, there's a surprising cool cast involved. Granted some of them are limited to mere cameos (Thomas Jane) and others might go completely unnoticed (Norman Reedus). The movie is filled with familiar faces from film and TV. Paul Walker (also a producer on the movie) is almost unrecognizable and a lot of fun as meth-head Raw Dog, and Matt Dillon seems to fit right in to such a strange little film as the husband who renews his search for his missing wife after finding her wedding ring in the pawn shop. Between his role in SIN CITY and his performance here as Johnny Shaw, I'm really starting to worry about Elijah Wood. He seems real intent on shaking off any hobbit memories with sociopathic characters intent on giving nightmares. And then there's Brendan Fraser as Elvis impersonator Ricky Baldoski in the final tale. Fraser himself does an excellent job, even if his improv is cringe- worthy (for proof, watch the blooper reel that runs over the end credits). I don't blame Fraser for the weak final act; I blame the writing. I can't remember the last time I've seen Fraser in a movie (aside from his little cameo in the first G.I. JOE movie) and, while I've never been a big fan of his, it's cool to see him doing something off-kilter like this.PAWN SHOP CHRONICLES isn't bad. It even had me believing, for a while at least, that it was better than it is. It's crazy and plenty entertaining, and it'll leave you with questions by the end. There seems to be a theme of religious imagery throughout the movie but I can't quite figure out what the filmmakers were going after. Thomas Jane and Sam Hennings are obvious religious figures within the context of the story that offer characters salvation or revenge in a couple of strange moments, but all I can figure is that this fictional little Georgia town is infested with Satan. I'm probably reading too much into it, as PAWN SHOP CHRONICLES is just 90 minutes of white trash craziness.

estebangonzalez10 "This ring belonged to my wife. I want you to tell me who sold you this ring."Wayne Kramer, director of Running Scared and The Cooler, brings us this anthology film where three separate stories are all connected in some way to a local southern pawn shop. The screenplay was written by Adam Minarovich, and there lies the problem of why this movie couldn't quite grasp the spirit of the film it was trying to imitate: Pulp Fiction. Minarovich and Kramer are no Tarantino and this is even more proof of why Tarantino really is a genius. These grindhouse B movies are no easy task to imitate and mixing comedy and shocks doesn't always work. The result can often be sickening rather than amusing and I am tired of these pointless and ultra violent films. Trying to be edgy and witty the film ends up being boring, mean spirited, and dull. It's a shame because a decent cast was wasted here: Paul Walker, Matt Dillon, Brendan Fraser, Vincent D'Onofrio, Elijah Wood, Ashlee Simpson, and Lukas Haas. They all play stereotypical rednecks, meth addicts, skinheads, or Elvis impersonators. The first two stories are ultra violent, while the third one is pointless. There were some interesting ideas thrown here and there, but overall the film fell flat and never managed to seduce me. This is an insane film, but I imagine it could have a small fan base, it just isn't for everyone. It was disturbing and dull with over the top crazy and mean characters.