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2 Days in the Valley

2 Days in the Valley

List Price: $9.97
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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: 48 hours killing game...
Review: When I watched this film, I thought that this film is similar to Quentin Tarantino¡¯s ¡°Pulp Fiction¡±. The plot of this film is similar, because of the director of the film. The director, John Herzfeld usually made TV series. This film is the second work for him as a full-length film. It has a style of TV drama, there are no main characters and at last the cases, which link each other, are solved like a TV drama. In this film, twelve characters meet each other through the different routes, but finally it connects with one case. The interesting point is the characters of this film. They are related to one another quite complicatedly. However, they all are involved in one homicide accident. It is funny and interesting.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Flawed but entertaining
Review: When this film came out, it was hurt by the expectation that this was "Pulp Fiction II" (something that also haunted "Jackie Brown"), but the comparisons to a Robert Altman film are more accurate. This is a sprawling ensemble piece, weaving together low-key eccentrics into a single narrative. It's just that some of them have guns.

The cast, especially James Spader and Charlize Theron are top notch, but a crucial change made to "lighten" the movie tosses much of the plot out the window, robs one central character of his key motivation, and greatly hinders the film. (The letter read in the car originally was from an AIDS clinic ...) I had hoped that the DVD edition would restore the original scene at least in a "deleted scenes" section if not actually let viewers see the film as it was originally intended, but so be it.

A good film for film fans who like their Altman with a twist of Tarantino. Recommended for fans of "Jackie Brown," "Get Shorty" or "The Limey."

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Nice!
Review: Wow Charlize Theron is so sexy! Her legs are to die for and this movie proves it! See it just to view her wonderful body in the buff!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: THIS is a romantic comedy?
Review: Yes. You've seen "grunge on the run" romantic comedies--Wild at Heart (1990), Natural Born Killers (1994) come to mind, and poor waitress/crazy old man romantic comedies, e.g., As Good As It Gets (1997)--well, this is a mousy secretary/aging hit man romantic comedy.

Somewhat. It's also a tongue-in-the cheek satire on all things that Hollywood thinks movie-goers crave: cute dogs, sexy women, good-hearted underdogs winning out, dumb cops, the ugly rich (Greg Cruttwell's wormy Allan Hopper fits the bill), shoot-outs, blood, dead bodies (enough to grace a Shakespearean stage) and that favorite of testosterone males everywhere: a good old-fashioned cat fight.

Charlize Theron and Teri Hatcher provide the eye appeal as they slap and toss each other around; and to be honest I have to say they are definitely worth watching. Excellent support comes from James Spader, as an amazingly clean-shaven (what does he use--Nair?) psycho-sickie with a stopwatch.

But Danny Aiello is the real star. He plays Dosmo Pizzo, the over-the-hill hit man (currently moonlighting in embarrassment at the local pizzeria). He loses his hairpiece, finds redemption, true love, thirty thousand Big Ones, and presumably lives happily ever after on the lam with his unlikely moll (Glenne Headly) in this clever plot by coincidence from director and scriptwriter John Herzfeld.

(By the way, what's with Hollywood and its perverse love affair with sympathetic hit men? A new genre? The hit man as the underclass hero? I just saw Grosse Pointe Blank (1997) which stars John Cusack as a "cute" amoral murder artist. What next? The lovable terrorist? Knowing Hollywood, I think we can count on it.)

Anyway, Spader's character is not so lovable. He kills without the slightest qualm and takes a great delight in blowing people away. Charlize is his girl friend and they have lots of you-know-what together. Teri Hatcher is an Olympic class skier with a loser boyfriend. And the Valley of course is the San Fernando Valley just north of L.A., onetime home of the Valley girls, now best known as the porn capital of America.

Jeff Daniels and Eric Stoltz play Valley cops (who are not as smart as L.A. cops--one of the jokes in the movie, ha, ha, ha). Both do a great job. Daniels is street wise and quick on the trigger and a bit of a prude while Stoltz is naive and a wanna-be homicide inspector. There are half a dozen cameos by not so well-known but talented people like veteran Austin Pendleton who does a killer sarcastic monologue on the directorial failures of suicidal Teddy Peppers (Paul Mazursky). One-time "Goodbye Girl" Marsha Mason has a modest part as a sweet and realistic nurse, and she is excellent. And there are dogs. You gotta have dogs.

However what makes this work is some clever dialogue and some satirical plot ideas, but mainly it is a tour de force of acting by a talented and highly professional cast. This is one of those movies in which every actor is a threat to steal the show at any time one way or the other. In a way it's a parade of cameos cleverly stitched together and then nicely edited.

But see this for James Spader whose skill playing nerdish weirdos is on fine display.


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