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Nurse Betty

Nurse Betty

List Price: $14.98
Your Price: $13.48
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Mild and innocuous time waster
Review: This comedy stars Renee Zellweger as a Kansas waitress who gets amnesia after the brutal murder of her husband and believes she is part of her favorite soap opera. She flees to Los Angeles with the murderers in hot pursuit because the drugs they are after are hidden in her car. Eventually she meets up with the soap opera star of her dreams and complications follow.

The best thing I can say about this film is that Renee Zellweger looks pretty and that the story held my interest somewhat. But instead of laughing at the supposedly funny parts, I just opened my eyes in amazement about how stupid it was. Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock are cast as the murderers and their racial stereotyping was insulting. The rest of the cast did the best that they could but the material was just plain silly. This film was nothing but a time waster. But sometimes that's all we want out of a film, something mild and innocuous. Once in a while, that's o.k.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Inventive, dark & very funny...
Review: Renee Zellweger shines in this inventive, dark, and very funny film about a small town girl caught up in a Hollywood TV soap. So many twists & turns with 2 or 3 different plots running on at the same time. A great supporting cast featuring Greg Kinnear, Morgan Freeman & Chris Rock (Kinnear as the soap's Dr. "Do-All" Ravell, and Freeman & Rock as the father/son team of bad guy drug chasers). Also note fine performances by lesser known actors Aaron Eckhart (Betty's car salesman slimeball husband) and Allsion Janney (the TV soap's producer). Betty plays the naive small town girl working as a waitress to a tee. She's clueless to everything that's going on around her - even her husband's murder (at the time). She mentally blocks out the murder and hops in a car and heads to Los Angeles to find her true (and unexpecting) love. The scene where she finally meets Kinnear face to face is outstanding. All the time, she is driving the car with the stash in the trunk that Freeman & Rock want so badly. Hence, enter the 2nd plot and more comic relief. I went into this movie not really knowing what to expect... I had read some good reviews in the newspaper so I thought I'd go see it... I was pleasantly surprised. Great flick.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Dear G-D, run from this movie!
Review: I rented this movie, thinking "OH, it'll be funny and I'm sure I'll enjoy it."

Boy was I wrong! THis was like a sugary Nightmare! If I ran into someone like Betty, I'd pull my hair out and scream at the top of my lungs!! SHe is perhaps the most annoying character in the movies of recent years! I didn't feel any sympathy for her.

The setup was alright, but the storyline was completely fake and forced. THe Hispanic woman who lends her house to Betty? FAKE. The relationship between Morgan and Chris's characters? Unrealistic, not to mention embarassingly unfunny! (The "Bland CAnyon", that's a joke anyone can come up with). The ending? Just plain boring and anti-climactic.

I can't believe any of these big, talented stars wasted their time with this movie. IT was a big fat waste of time.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Another Odd Couple
Review: Nurse Betty is worth seeing for two main reasons: Renee Zellweger and Morgan Freeman. They are simply wonderful as two romantic dreamers in search of their heart's desire. That one is a waitress in a state of dissasociative shock and the other a hitman at the end of a long career is beside the point. They both long for fulfillment in an idealized "other".

Oh, and it is a comedy. Some graphic killing aside (I guess even semi-screwball comedy isn't immune to that in this era) it is a sweet and funny oddball comedy.

Morgan Freeman is simply incapable of a bad performance. They could give him the Oscar every year for my money. He is always real and always likeable which is exactly what was needed to bring this character alive. His whistful, gradual falling in love with Betty is something to behold.

But Renee Zellweger is the revelation here. I have tried, and I can't think of another actress that could have pulled off this role. Her utterly believable Betty, sweetly, obstinately, determinedly marching to find her fantasy "real love" is daffily right and just off-center enough to make her lovably real. It is a piece of work and keeps the movie centered through some of its more farfetched plot elements.

Chris Rock and the supporting cast are fine, but it is Morgan and Renee that will hold your interest throughout. Really fine work from them both.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: RENEE WAS ROBBED!
Review: All i have to say besides this is truly the best movie of the year and most original is that RENNE WAS ROBBED BY JULIA! Her performance was 10x's better than Julia's (no offense to Julia, personally i think she should've won for Notting Hill)

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Nurse STUPID! HA!
Review: ...

Listen, I *like* Neil Labute. 'In the Company of Men' was riveting and stark. 'Your Friends & Neighbors' wasn't quite as impressive, but still well worth the time. But 'Nurse Betty.' Eh. This was a disappointment.

You know, I can remember back when I was reading about Labute's new upcoming film in some magazine (or online somewhere? -- who knows) ... and though I *wanted* to drink up the kooky premise of this new upcoming movie and say to myself: "Original! Fresh! Genius!" -- there was an unconvinced voice at the back of my head stubbornly insisting: "Um ... that sounds ... stupid."

And as I say, it was very disappointing to me to have that voice proven right when I finally got around to seeing it.

What 'Nurse Betty' does, in my eyes, is takes a fundamentally silly, unbelievable premise and attempts to build a big, and occasionally very dark, sitcom around it. Questionable in and of itself, but what's worse, is that it fails quite miserably.

Why? The main reason as I see it is that none of the characters feel the slightest bit real (Betty included), and they rarely make much sense. I enjoyed the rapport between Freeman and Rock for the first twenty minutes or so, but as the film goes on, that rapport -- instead of developing and being fleshed out -- simply becomes stilted and boring. Both characters prove themselves inexplicably weird, and neither are particularly believable as hit men, even as "wacky" hit men.

Since the characters do not feel real and make little sense, I felt no sympathy or empathy for/with them, and my interest level in their outcome remained fairly low. I mean sure, Betty was sweet, but her husband's murder and it's subsequent effect on her (a mysterious psychological "snap" which results in her believing that she's a character in her favorite soap opera), are atmospherically awkward, surprisingly unengaging, and, as I've mentioned, unbelievable.

Betty's "sweetness" is, I gather, supposed to be a major driving force in the movie. It is her utter lack of pretension and her faithful belief in her own fantasy which causes things to sort of "magically" happen around her. This bothered me. One minute, I'm watching Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock doing a shoddy Pulp Fiction imitation, the next, it's like I'm in a Disney movie. Betty "magically" saves the patient in the ambulance. Betty "magically" -- through accidental and would-be-humorous circumstances -- winds up a real nurse! Betty "magically" (and again through accidental, would-be-humorous circumstances) gets the chance to meet the soap star she is obsessed with, and, even MORE "magically," he (again through aforementioned circumstances) falls for her, delusion and all, (albeit temporarily.)

Too much "wonder" and not enough fictional credibility for my tastes, on top of the already accounted for fact that none of the characters were really that interesting or developed or real-seeming.

Now, Betty's disillusionment on the set of the soap was an interesting scene (atmospherically reminiscent of Chad "disillusioning" Stacy Edwards' character in 'ITCOM'), and was certainly a much-needed and admirable blow to the overdone and not-especially-funny atmosphere of child-like "magic" ... but ultimately it doesn't do much for the film as a whole. How does it really change Betty? How does she feel about the fact that she's been clinically insane for the last ... (month or two)? Who knows? Apparently not the writer or director. Nope: Betty just snaps out of it, just as easily and unbelievably as she snapped into it, and we're quickly hurried off to what I guess was supposed to be a rollicking, nutty climax/showdown at Betty's friend's apartment, where all of the character's who've been after her simultaneously show up. Chris Rock has a few amusing moments to be sure, but on the whole it's just ... dumb. Since none of the characters are particularly coherent or entertaining, it just comes of as, well, what it is: a bunch of incoherent, not-very-entertaining characters trying really hard to save a boring, silly movie.

When all is said and done, 'Nurse Betty' did not touch me, move me, make me laugh, make me cry, engage me, disturb me, or anything else. It just made me shake my head in disappointment.

Better luck next time, Neil. You seem better off working with your own scripts.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A movie with some substance
Review: I rented Nurse Betty the other day, and now I ordered it on DVD. Renee Zellweger's performance has never been better...I don't understand how the Academy overlooked her. And Greg Kinnear....he is HOT!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: dvd-great special features
Review: what a surprise of a film! violent, kooky, kinky, funny, and touching. especially in the special features. the special features include all the soap opera episodes of "a reason to love" and in the last one, beautiful sunghi lee (jasmine) starts kissing the other actress in a full, clear, uninterrupted scene. wonderful choice to cast her. then, in the deleted scenes, chris rock's demise titled, "the flap". it happens during the scene in which his character gets shot by the sheriff but in the movie, they don't show the last hit that puts him away. the deleted scene shows chris rock screaming "daddy" then depicts the most gruesome gunshot wound to the head that i have ever seen and i understood why they titled it "the flap". just as he's hit, his head just tears open and a glob of blood spews out of his mouth. it was the most disturbing, disgusting gunshot wound i've ever seen, not your typical nice clean hole. maybe the sheriff was using explosive bullets, i don't know. it was a wise decision to cut that scene, but i can't believe they even made it in the first place! it's worth it though if you find him annoying. good performances by all. they should have marketed it differently though. i thought it was gonna be some sappy comedy but then i saw it was directed by labute.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Good Actors, Bad Movie
Review: This was not one of Chris Rock's better movies.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Director LaBute's Most Enjoyable Movie
Review: LaBute's prior 2 films, "In The Company of Men" and "Your Friends and Neighbors" were so cynical yet real that you experienced the ultimate acidic look at relations between men and women. I thought "In The Company of Men" was a stunning film but I would hardly turn it on after a hard day's work when I really needed to relax. Yes, this very same director has made a 3rd movie that I could actually like and enjoy; laugh even! I wouldn't have believed he was capable of doing something not vitrolic. For awhile, while watching this, I thought he'd gone all the way in the other direction and this was going to take every predictible Hollywood turn. He didn't go that route, Thank God. He pairs Zellwegger with the most unpleasant husband imaginable (the lead from "In The Company of Men") and then has hubby disposed of by two hit men. Zellwegger's character, Betty, experiences post traumatic stress syndrome since she witnessed the murder. She becomes, in her own mind, a character, Nurse Betty, on her favorite soap opera, "Reason To Love." She is so deeply into this fantasy that she takes off for LA to find her "former fiance", the "doctor" from the show. The 2 hit men, Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock, have to find her to get their money back, which is hidden in her car. How far does she follow her fantasy? Well, the imagination knows no limits here but I don't want to spoil the experience for anyone. Suffice it to say that you will have a rollicking good time yet the film does not descend to Hollywood's dream machine level. In short, it does not become moronic along the way. If I had one quibble with the movie it is in using the cliche of 2 hit men to move the plot along. However, the husband had to be disposed of in shocking fashion so I suppose that took the possibilities down to only a few. Freeman and Rock do a really good job with these 2 roles, which in most other hands would have been awful.


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