Harvey Taylor
Has the person who said comedy seen the movie? This is a very serious movie about kids that were in a convenience store robbery and got beat up and one person got killed. To make matters worst it was all filmed and broadcast around the country. The movie has a serious message. The hero in the movie is not a hero, that person, his best friend was killed on tape live for the whole world to watch. Yes, he was beaten and lived to tell about, but still. I liked the movie because it deals with that inner struggle of trying to explain to the world that you do not deserve praise and hero status, when you just lost your only true friend and did not at least fight to keep him alive.
FlashCallahan
Cliff Spab doesn't really care about anything. He gets held hostage at a store for 36 days by terrorists, who demand that the entire thing be broadcast on national television. Cliff ends up taking a bullet for fellow hostage Wendy - making him a national hero. The two are the sole survivors of the ordeal, and soon become prisoners of the media. Cliff escapes it all, only to find himself being pushed further away from Wendy when he needs her most....Once you get past the fact that Dorff sounds uncannily like Christian Slater, you get another one of those films from the mid nineties that tried to define good old 'generation X'. And for the most part, it works.Dorff is great as the guy who is having his fifteen minutes of fame, but cannot decipher why people are not mentioning his friend who was killed. But this was a time when media only really dwelled on the good stuff, to sugar coat the public, to get more money behind their new 'celeb'The film doesn't know what genre it belongs to. One minute it's hilarious, next it's soul searching, and then it goes for a Araki/Solondz hybrid that baffles.But it's good, and all the performances are great, I just wish it didn't get lost in its own smugness every now and again.The last fifteen minutes is great though, showing us how fickle the media were/are, and how fame really slips through your fingers, once a new fad has been found.Everything Matters? S.F.W...
ranja
A great movie about the hypocrysy of the american media. I've heard people saying about this move: "I would like to have seen more about what happened in the store". Then I think: You haven't understood the movie at all. Stephen Dorff is brilliant in his role as the anti-hero Spab who has to run away from the media because he has no interest for them, leading him into more and more problems until there is no escape then to just play along with them. Reese Witherspoon plays the role of Wendy very well, the rich kid who has tasted the live without her tight parents strings. And then, the climax in the end of the film... The only bad thing is that I read the novel afterwards and they changed the end!! Why????
bob the moo
5 people are taken hostage in a convenience store for 36 days until a fight allows them to escape. During these 36 days the terrorists' only demand is that their video feed from inside the store is broadcast live on the networks. Spab and Wendy emerge as the only survivors to find themselves heroes of the media generation.Don't let the plot summary fool you into thinking this is some type of thriller with a media slant. The hostage thing is over in the first 3 minutes and any flashbacks are dull and meaningless (except one powerful one). Instead we have a mixed up satire on media and the fade of fame. The plot never makes sense and really loses the point after only a few minutes. The fact that the whole hostage thing is never explained and barely touched on just shows it is nothing but a poor plot device to get to where the makers wanted to be to make their point.It manages to come across as just an angry youth movie with it's anger not directed anywhere in particular. This causes it to be very loud and with far too much swearing, causing you to start to switch off. The only point that the film manages to make clearly is that no matter who is the 15 minute celeb or news story that night, TV is all the same. Wow! What cutting edge comment!Dorff is OK but just plain annoying in his videos (that apparently the world love). Witherspoon is vapid, Busey is just loud and annoying and Adams is totally misused. The cast put more effort into saying the F word than anything else. It is very off putting because it is unnecessary I guess they thought the `kids' would dig it.Overall this is just like the media that it tries to criticise. It is loud, meaningless, lacking substance and totally forgettable physician heal thyself............
AD
