Home :: DVD :: Drama :: General  

African American Drama
Classics
Crime & Criminals
Cult Classics
Family Life
Gay & Lesbian
General

Love & Romance
Military & War
Murder & Mayhem
Period Piece
Religion
Sports
Television
It's the Rage

It's the Rage

List Price: $9.98
Your Price: $9.98
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 2 >>

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: It's... o.k
Review: A great cast, but sadly not a great film. It tries to intertwine it's charectars ( a la MAGNOLIA), but hardly gets even close to that kind of genius. Some of the charectars were very well written (Jeff Daniels in particular), but some were off the wall ascrewball (Gary Sinise doing a Bill Gates impression or Josh Brolin just being stupid as a video clerk), and I didn't feel they worked. These types of films are meant to focus on charectars, but I just didn't feel compassion for them (Anna Paquin, ugh!), and oh, did I try! Funny and poignant at times, and a great monologue by Joan Allen, keep this film afloat, but after the first half hour, It's the Rage is...

Well... It's not so great.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: ...brilliant!!!
Review: a lot of people miss the point labeling this as anti-gun propaganda. its not saying "guns are bad, dont use guns", its making fun of the cheesy crime movies meant to portray human nature and street life and all that mess. there's all these movies beating the same cliche characters into the ground... this movie takes EVERY cliche crime movie character you have EVER seen and puts them all in a big gun totin wad

if you dont instantly label it as one of those "guns kill people" movies, you should have a great time watching it, its just a beautiful movie man, absolutely beautiful

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Scattershot
Review: Based on a play (which I've never seen), "It's the Rage" follows an ensemble of coincidentally linked characters either perpetrating or victimized by gun violence of all kinds. The ultimate message-a gun is the only thing separating an ordinary but otherwise stressed out person from becoming a murderer-seems reasonable. But the film's flashy and shallow textures undercut its own serious agenda. Or maybe it's the other way around. In either case, "It's the Rage" may be intriguing on its Tarantino-esque surface and commendable for its anti-gun social message, but the film can't help but fail as these two impulses fight it out. Ultimately, "It's the Rage is bloodless in every sense of the word.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Scattershot
Review: Based on a play (which I've never seen), "It's the Rage" follows an ensemble of coincidentally linked characters either perpetrating or victimized by gun violence of all kinds. The ultimate message-a gun is the only thing separating an ordinary but otherwise stressed out person from becoming a murderer-seems reasonable. But the film's flashy and shallow textures undercut its own serious agenda. Or maybe it's the other way around. In either case, "It's the Rage" may be intriguing on its Tarantino-esque surface and commendable for its anti-gun social message, but the film can't help but fail as these two impulses fight it out. Ultimately, "It's the Rage is bloodless in every sense of the word.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Guns With Silencer
Review: Ever since a man created a gun, people have been killing each other for many reason. I think each crime has its own motivation. But the gun possession became such a world wide cataclysm that autorities started looking for reasons and explanations. And when it comes to guns and killing, unfortunatelly, "It is the Rage" brings no new breath at all.

The script deals with many people that by many different reasons have acquired a revolver. They seem to be conected to each other somehow, even though they don't know it. It is an altman-esque movie added guns. This film could have meant for Guns what "Traffic" has for Drugs. But a good cast does not compensate a clichê hidden script.

Instead of working on a new vision of the endemic problem of guns, the scriptwriter prefered to used some of the very old clichêd ideas along with some new ones. Once more, films and TV are pointed as the cause of violence and alienation. One of the characters works in a videoshop and we can see displayed everywhere posters of "Resevoir Dogs", "Pulp Fiction", Natural Born Killers", in another scene there is a TV on showing a scene from "Scream". To make things worse, the director really believes this is one of the main reasons of violence, as he shows in his movie.

A very modern idea --which already became a clichê -- used in this film as a cause of violence is tecnology and information. One character is a very rich man who has made fortune with virtual business and he doesn't leave his house for years, or even get in touch with another human being but his assistant. Of course, he is crazy and he has gun that will be used sooner or later. Then again, this idea doesn't work here, the character is silly.

The cast has ups and downs. Joan Allen, Jeff Daniels and Gary Sinise are very effective, despite the limitations of their characters. But David Schwimmer and Anna Paquin are embarassing, and they add much more preconceived ideas to their characters than the script'd already done. He plays a gay who is suspicious of his partner infidelity and she is a street girl, who stealls shops and has sex for money, despite saying all the time she is not a prostitute -- but this is not really the character's problem. She looks bored most scenes she is in. By the way, this girl was a promise when she made "The Piano", but after that she hasn't proved to be a good actress yet.

This film may have a good idea lost here and there, but as a whole it sinks. It has a promising beginning that loses its ton a couple of minutes later. It seems to me that the filmmakers wanted with this movie is to show how ironic life can be, but it didn't work. The ending sequence and some explanatory cards in the end try to be ironic, but as a matter of fact, they are involutarily funny. Anyway, some people may think this film to be worthy watching once it tackles moral an conteporany issues, although its perspective is very mistaken.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Godawful morality tale missing the point
Review: For a while, I thought this movie was some sort of scathing satire. Of what, I wasn't sure, but there are some absolutely hysterical and stupid things that go on in this movie. Apparently, the intention of this farce is to be some sort of moral commentary on guns in our society. Unfortunately for IT'S THE RAGE, in order for a morality tale to be at all successful, it has to be watchable AND believable. This movie, supposedly anti-firearm, is at its most hilarious when the firearms are being waved about.

The "ensemble" cast has many fine, fine actors, all of whom probably thought that by making this movie, the world would be a better place and they could pick up a paycheck at the same time. Oh well.

Ribisi is hilarious as the meth-junkie with paranoid schizophrenia. His scene in the shooting range is one of the most amusing things I've ever seen. His little kleptomaniac whore of a sister was also really funny, but I recommend seeing Reese Witherspoon in FREEWAY. Also, the scene in the bar where everyone goes for their gun at once was absolutely hilarious! If only they all shot each other, the credits would have rolled, we would have satisfylingly hit rewind. Alas.

Jeff Daniels is funny as the psychopathic white-bred suburban slimeball. Many of his lines were really sharp, and since we didn't care about his dead business partner, why should we? Gary Sinise is a great actor who is once again unfortunately cast, this time as the mentally imbalanced and paranoid recluse billionaire. Gary Schwimmer, ala FRIENDS, plays a gay guy with all the brilliance that cliche can deliver. THIS character suffers from manic depression. There is also a former assistant of the paranoid billionaire who works in a video store and suffers from romantic delusions. We just KNOW he's not fit for survival in THIS ugly, ugly world.

To all of these loopy, unintentionally comic parts we have Joan Allen as the "straightman." She goes through the film having bad day after bad day. As if people weren't awful BEFORE they invented guns. One of the prerequisites of inventing guns in the first place is awfulness, thus the supposed MORAL of this tale is missing the point.

This movie has many problems: superficial characters, goofy script, "missed points", blathering pretentiousness, inane coincidences, unintentional self-parody, etcetera.

What are we to morally conclude from IT'S THE RAGE? Not that society would be better off without guns. Certainly not that guns CAUSE rage in society. Rather, we can draw the lesson from this movie a point that is actually pretty obvious and uncontroversial: psychopaths, manic depressives, paranoid schizophrenics, kleptomaniac whoring minors, and insane billionaires ought not to have guns....well duh. IT'S THE RAGE wants to be anti-gun, yet its case for solving the symptoms fails. It does --sorta-- make the case that we really need to deal with the disease.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: 100% Stooopid!
Review: I can't understand why my roommate reccommended this movie, nor why I bothered to sit through the entire thing, nor how i managed to keep from vomiting throughout. Rarely does a movie so thoroughly convince me that I would get more bang for my buck if I paid for cable and watched bad TV all day long. Never have I seen a movie with a more obvious --and STOOPID-- message... "oh my GOD! Guns are BAD!" All the people in the movie get mad and buy guns and then they kill people and that is bad. The end. What a naive and PC piece of !$*#$&%. However, it did have a great cast and they all gave thoroughly shallow performances, which made me feel really good about myself, in comparison.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Uniquely humurous
Review: I recommend this movie to those of you who enjoy different films like MAGNOLIA, EYES WIDE SHUT, INSIDE JOHN MALKOVICH, and films that are always a bit askew. If the kinds of movies you like are films that are neatly tied with characters and storylines that repeat themselves ad nauseam, then you won't get the laughs out of this film that I did. Each to his own, and thank goodness that I found this little flick which provided kicks as it addressed the issues of accessability to guns by those who are prone to rage, which is most of us at one time or other.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Uniquely humurous
Review: I recommend this movie to those of you who enjoy different films like MAGNOLIA, EYES WIDE SHUT, INSIDE JOHN MALKOVICH, and films that are always a bit askew. If the kinds of movies you like are films that are neatly tied with characters and storylines that repeat themselves ad nauseam, then you won't get the laughs out of this film that I did. Each to his own, and thank goodness that I found this little flick which provided kicks as it addressed the issues of accessability to guns by those who are prone to rage, which is most of us at one time or other.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: An excellent cast makes the film worth watching.
Review: Let`s me say this again for a great cast:Jeff Daniels(The Purple Rose of Cario), Joan Allen(Face/Off), André Braugher(City of Angels), Gary Sinise(Mission to Mars), Anna Paquin(The Piano), Robert Forster(Jackie Brown), Josh Brolin(Hollow Man), David Schwimmer(Apt Pupil), Bokeem Woodbine(Life) and Giovanni Ribisi(Saving Private Ryan). This fun entertaining film about all sort rage on people`s different personality and thier breakdown. The weirdest performance in the film is Sinise, who`s is unusual in this kind of film. This movie is an Dramatic Comedy. The picture was made for theater but relase in T.V. instend.

DVD`s has an good anamorphic widescreen transer(1.85:1) and an fine Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround. Also has an running commentary by the director. Grade:B+.


<< 1 2 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates