Some movies are dragged down by weak performances, some weak movies are elevated by outstanding acting. This has a little of both pushing in each direction, with the director a little too eager to emulate Tarantino's ghoulish style. Stanley Tucci really puts in a fine performance as a highly intelligent, anal and laconic hit-man. But he's in the movie too little to really save it.
Robbie Coltrane is utterly wasted as the mob boss, all he gets to do is growl a little and swill bourbon. Kyra Sedgewick does her best, but can't quite bring off the hard bitten hit woman (Kathleen Turner succeeded in Prizzi's Honor). She just seems out of place, watching her with a gun is like seeing a person who doesn't smoke trying to hold a cigarette--just looks awkward. In one scene she's digging a very large grave with a pile of dirt almost as big as herself. You can tell, though she's in very good shape, she's never used a shovel in her life and she looks remarkably silly.
The vast quantities of blood that sprays and puddles everywhere gets boring very quickly--as if the director just bought stock in a fake blood corporation and figured to give it some business. Ultimately, not much happens in the movie, there's some blather about a conspiracy to topple the mob boss and missing money, but hardly worth the effort. The humor, such as it is, doesn't quite come off, and the "dishonor among thieves" theme is hardly a revelation. If stupid bloodshed, peppered with weak black humor, rent this -- it's a great example of beating to death a genre that wasn't that strong to begin with.
Robbie Coltrane is utterly wasted as the mob boss, all he gets to do is growl a little and swill bourbon. Kyra Sedgewick does her best, but can't quite bring off the hard bitten hit woman (Kathleen Turner succeeded in Prizzi's Honor). She just seems out of place, watching her with a gun is like seeing a person who doesn't smoke trying to hold a cigarette--just looks awkward. In one scene she's digging a very large grave with a pile of dirt almost as big as herself. You can tell, though she's in very good shape, she's never used a shovel in her life and she looks remarkably silly.
The vast quantities of blood that sprays and puddles everywhere gets boring very quickly--as if the director just bought stock in a fake blood corporation and figured to give it some business. Ultimately, not much happens in the movie, there's some blather about a conspiracy to topple the mob boss and missing money, but hardly worth the effort. The humor, such as it is, doesn't quite come off, and the "dishonor among thieves" theme is hardly a revelation. If stupid bloodshed, peppered with weak black humor, rent this -- it's a great example of beating to death a genre that wasn't that strong to begin with.