Made on the cheap, the awful Michael Madsen/Dennis Hopper combo floats for 90 minutes with Hopper covering his daughter's accidental hit and run incident. Slimeball Ron takes advantage of this to get Hopper to do something for him. Hopper threatens Ron and nearly strangles him to death in a bathroom, except he comes back to the bathroom to find him dead. He proceeds to throw the body out the window of the bathroom and try to cover the body up with a trash bag. Madsen rolls up as a lively and somewhat interesting serial killer. Though mostly it's Madsen's lively over-acting that makes it enjoyable. Madsen offers to hide the body in his car and that he's seen Hopper throw the body out the window. Hopper slowly decides to go with this madman after the Madsen's car gets the attention of the cops. This leads to a rather pointless and sole car chase action scene that looks like it was the probably the best they could afford.
Hopper discovers that Madsen is a rather prolific serial killer, picking up random women and killing them. It's at this point that the movie stops being a thriller or interesting because it bogs down in a road trip movie with Madsen and Hopper driving around and musing about murder and their boring childhoods that have no real effect on the plot. This also has pointless exploitational scene of a peeping tom homeless guy who goes back and forth listening to Hopper and Madsen's ADR'ed conversation and watching a woman strip in a changing room. It's one of the most laughable scenes I've ever seen, as the director seems more interested in a peep show then the actual characters in the movie.
Other lame scenes including pointless flashbacks to both character's childhoods that really explain nothing and go nowhere. We don't need to know anything about their childhoods. We don't need to know Madsen burned his father alive as a kid. That's rather hard to care about considering we already get the point he's a serial killer. All those scenes exist to just have Madsen crone on and try to convince Hopper that's he's no better than him in the killing department. It's awful, the suspense is finally brought back when Hopper is made to cooperate with Madsen in a massive cover-up mission that involves wiping phone messages off of Ron's home phone recorder (Madsen destroys it) and getting rid of the victim's car and his daughter's wrecked, bloody car that was taken by Ron as leverage to get him to do something for him.
Unfortunately, both of them are not counting on Ron's current girlfriend who is sneaking around trying to find him and is ultimately done away with by Madsen. Madsen's instructions are not followed to the letter and he goes after Hopper and reveals that he set him up in a WTF twist that will leave your head swimming and the bigger twist that ends the movie rather anti-climatically is that Hopper has invited the police into his home and they shoot an armed Madsen dead in the closing moments of the movie. And right to credits. Seriously, it's a lame ass thriller and only recommended to people who want to watch Dennis Hopper act nervous, yell at people and ADR things.
Madsen plays a Mr. Blonde clone with a John Deere hat, and may be quirky and interesting for a few moments but little is done with him when having him sit and describe his childhood. The rest of the actors are community theater level and atrocious. In only 90 minutes the movie has succeeded to annoy me and bore me all at once.
Plus the weird product placement that was not blurred out for some reason. Yes, South Park shot glasses support drunk driving and hit and run. Also, Hefty is the only trashbag you should use to put dead bodies in according to this movie.
Odd scenes where Hopper is seeing into the future trial of both his daughter and him complete with a lesbian prison inmate getting abusive with his daughter.
And Ron the kindest blackmailer and slimeball you've ever seen who comes off more as a used car salesman or a door to door salesman selling life insurance than a slimeball conman with an agenda.
Further odd scenes of Hopper watching home movies of a little girl that's suppose to be his daughter and looking concerned while he ADR's his thoughts into the scene. The movie is just odd and not even really enjoyable. It's not as bad as Chasing Ghosts though, as far as Michael Madsen movies go.
Hopper discovers that Madsen is a rather prolific serial killer, picking up random women and killing them. It's at this point that the movie stops being a thriller or interesting because it bogs down in a road trip movie with Madsen and Hopper driving around and musing about murder and their boring childhoods that have no real effect on the plot. This also has pointless exploitational scene of a peeping tom homeless guy who goes back and forth listening to Hopper and Madsen's ADR'ed conversation and watching a woman strip in a changing room. It's one of the most laughable scenes I've ever seen, as the director seems more interested in a peep show then the actual characters in the movie.
Other lame scenes including pointless flashbacks to both character's childhoods that really explain nothing and go nowhere. We don't need to know anything about their childhoods. We don't need to know Madsen burned his father alive as a kid. That's rather hard to care about considering we already get the point he's a serial killer. All those scenes exist to just have Madsen crone on and try to convince Hopper that's he's no better than him in the killing department. It's awful, the suspense is finally brought back when Hopper is made to cooperate with Madsen in a massive cover-up mission that involves wiping phone messages off of Ron's home phone recorder (Madsen destroys it) and getting rid of the victim's car and his daughter's wrecked, bloody car that was taken by Ron as leverage to get him to do something for him.
Unfortunately, both of them are not counting on Ron's current girlfriend who is sneaking around trying to find him and is ultimately done away with by Madsen. Madsen's instructions are not followed to the letter and he goes after Hopper and reveals that he set him up in a WTF twist that will leave your head swimming and the bigger twist that ends the movie rather anti-climatically is that Hopper has invited the police into his home and they shoot an armed Madsen dead in the closing moments of the movie. And right to credits. Seriously, it's a lame ass thriller and only recommended to people who want to watch Dennis Hopper act nervous, yell at people and ADR things.
Madsen plays a Mr. Blonde clone with a John Deere hat, and may be quirky and interesting for a few moments but little is done with him when having him sit and describe his childhood. The rest of the actors are community theater level and atrocious. In only 90 minutes the movie has succeeded to annoy me and bore me all at once.
Plus the weird product placement that was not blurred out for some reason. Yes, South Park shot glasses support drunk driving and hit and run. Also, Hefty is the only trashbag you should use to put dead bodies in according to this movie.
Odd scenes where Hopper is seeing into the future trial of both his daughter and him complete with a lesbian prison inmate getting abusive with his daughter.
And Ron the kindest blackmailer and slimeball you've ever seen who comes off more as a used car salesman or a door to door salesman selling life insurance than a slimeball conman with an agenda.
Further odd scenes of Hopper watching home movies of a little girl that's suppose to be his daughter and looking concerned while he ADR's his thoughts into the scene. The movie is just odd and not even really enjoyable. It's not as bad as Chasing Ghosts though, as far as Michael Madsen movies go.