Unsavory Characters

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining homage to film noir mysteries
Review: "Unsavory Characters" is an entertaining homage to those film noir mysteries of the forties and fifties. I was surprised at
the number of plot twists including one at the end I didn't see
coming. The unknown actors are very good. Eric Lefler reminded me of John Garfield and Jacqueline Bowman is a very good femme fatale. I think she could be a star if she gets the right role. Anthony Peraticos is sweaty and creepy. The gangsters look type cast. There is some nudity and violence. The sex scene when the girl eats the money and meows like a cat was weird.

The film has stylish photography. Part of it was shot in B&W and it definately looks like an old film noir with lots of dark shadows. The color portions look like Technicolor. I thought the jazz music was moody. I liked the song she sings in the nightclub too although it went on too long. The stereo has no surrounds but considering the type of story it is, it didn't bother me.

The commentary by the director is very interesting. I learned about the history of film noir movies. It's like a film class. The stills aren't too good and there's a picture of a bird that wasn't in the movie. The picture of the director makes him look sinister which is amusing. The trailor is arty. I liked the intercutting between sex and violence and title cards.

Overall, a good DVD that's fun to watch.

Rating:
Summary: Semi-clever concept with problems
Review: How did the ex-husband know the two of them were at the movie theater?

Don't worry; that's not a spoiler. Instead, it's an indicator of the most glaring logic blooper in this film which tries very hard to be an original take on film noir.

It does succeed in this, to an extent. The concept is actually not bad; a screenwriter visualizes a classic film noir tale which is played out in black-and-white with himself as the hardboiled protagonist, a femme fatale, and, of course, a host of baddies including a much older guy who's keeping the femme fatale as his mistress. Of course the term "femme fatale" is not used for nothing.

Interspersed with this tale are events in the life of the writer himself, in full color, which includes meeting a woman who looks exactly like his femme fatale and, later, her ex-husband who's constantly watching the two of them as they plunge into a torrid affair. The woman turns out to be a femme fatale herself and the screenwriter, more hardboiled than he thought he could be, given the noirish circumstances he's pulled into.

But there are problems here. One is that while the stilted dialogue in the black and white visualized sections are OK, because it is, after all, visualized period fiction (ca. 1950), the same clunkiness in the dialogue does not work at all for the "real" scenes in color. Additionally, the amateurishness of many of the actors is readily apparent; they just speak their lines instead of act. Thirdly, for the color scenes, much of the time, characters follow each other around in order to confront each other, and while this itself is not necessarily a bad thing, on at least two occasions, the viewer wonders how the pursuer happened to be just at the right place and time to follow the one(s) he (or she) is pursuing to exactly where they were going.

Had the budget been larger, the actors better, the dialogue crisper and, more importantly, the story tighter, this might have been a pretty decent film. As it is, it suffers from too many problems to make it worthwhile.

Rating:
Summary: Semi-clever concept with problems
Review: How did the ex-husband know the two of them were at the movie theater?

Don't worry; that's not a spoiler. Instead, it's an indicator of the most glaring logic blooper in this film which tries very hard to be an original take on film noir.

It does succeed in this, to an extent. The concept is actually not bad; a screenwriter visualizes a classic film noir tale which is played out in black-and-white with himself as the hardboiled protagonist, a femme fatale, and, of course, a host of baddies including a much older guy who's keeping the femme fatale as his mistress. Of course the term "femme fatale" is not used for nothing.

Interspersed with this tale are events in the life of the writer himself, in full color, which includes meeting a woman who looks exactly like his femme fatale and, later, her ex-husband who's constantly watching the two of them as they plunge into a torrid affair. The woman turns out to be a femme fatale herself and the screenwriter, more hardboiled than he thought he could be, given the noirish circumstances he's pulled into.

But there are problems here. One is that while the stilted dialogue in the black and white visualized sections are OK, because it is, after all, visualized period fiction (ca. 1950), the same clunkiness in the dialogue does not work at all for the "real" scenes in color. Additionally, the amateurishness of many of the actors is readily apparent; they just speak their lines instead of act. Thirdly, for the color scenes, much of the time, characters follow each other around in order to confront each other, and while this itself is not necessarily a bad thing, on at least two occasions, the viewer wonders how the pursuer happened to be just at the right place and time to follow the one(s) he (or she) is pursuing to exactly where they were going.

Had the budget been larger, the actors better, the dialogue crisper and, more importantly, the story tighter, this might have been a pretty decent film. As it is, it suffers from too many problems to make it worthwhile.

Rating:
Summary: JERSEY GIRL
Review: This movie was produced with such a flair of artistic talent! I
enjoyed the way it was filmed in black and white and then progressed into color. The plot was suspenseful and it reminded me of Richard Haines other film, "Space Avengers" where life imitates art.
I recommend this movie!