Criminal Lovers

Rating:
Summary: A Gay postmodern retelling of "Hansel and Gretel"
Review: If you like the new Gay postmodern cinema, Francois Ozon's _Criminal Lovers_ isn't half bad. Three scenes in the film display Ozon's formidable talents as a director, but between those good moments there's only so much dead air. The pretty but uncharismatic young leads don't much help the situation, either.

The story, which borrows heavily (and obviously) from "Hansel and Gretel," could work well as a short film, but is much too slight for feature length. Ozon tries to overcome this problem by creating an extensive backstory for the protagonists. Problem is, that backstory is pretty boring (plus we've seen it before, in Larry Clark's _Bully_ and a host of other troubled-teen movies). Meanwhile, the psychodrama at the center of the film is underdeveloped -- and even worse, it's not half as kinky or transgressive as it pretends to be.

This said, the final fifteen minutes of _Criminal Lovers_ are excellent. If you're interested, I'd advise you to rent this one.

Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your time or money
Review: This is the absolute worst movie I have ever seen. There is not one iota of originality in it. It is tedious and utterly uninspired. I literally threw my copy out after viewing it once.

Rating:
Summary: this movie is amazing!!
Review: This movie was my favorite film of last year. My one regret when I saw it was that it closed the next day and I couldn't go back and see it again.

The movie may have some disturbing elements for some viewers, so if you are easily disturbed or offended you should maybe pass. But anyone who truely loves film, especially independent film, I think will appreciate it. I had never seen a François Ozon movie before, but now I plan to see every single one. Natacha Régnier and Jérémie Rénier give two of the best performances that I have seen recently and should be commended. The movie has a great dark look and feel to it.

I think one of the main reasons I loved this movie was because it was kind of daring. While sitting there watching it, I though of a direction that I would have liked it to take but said to myself that it wouldn't go like that. To my complete surprise it did and I found that rewarding.

Rating:
Summary: Misleading Title, Terrible Film!!! Do Not Watch Or Rent.....
Review: This was absolutely THE WORST foreign film I have ever had the unfortunate pleasure of veiwing. I was expecting to see the two stars of this movie engaged in criminal activity & sexual acts throughout kinda like a foreign version of Natural Born Killers but what I got was disgust. The plot makes no sense, why was it titled Criminal Lovers. It should've been titled "One Boyfriends Nightmare". This individual's girlfriend wants a guy she has a crush on killed for no reason at all except to say he wanted to sleep with her. Then the movie takes a strange turn into something that had absolutely nothing to do with how it started or the movie's title. I never fully understood what was goin on, why did she want this guy dead. I can only assume it was becuase she may have been a virgin & wanted to stay one but her attraction to this guy may have made her want to cheat on her boyfriend, so she decides to kill him. Whatever, I dunno, if you want to see it because you think there's a love story here, don't bother. You wanna see some T&A in this flick, forget it, the one girl in this movie only teases guys throughout never taking off anything till right at the end & even then you can't see much, on the other hand, for the ladies, there's disgusting full frontal male nudity in almost every scene. If you ever get this dvd from someone as a gift, that person hates you.