The Gingerbread Man

The ways in which Altman tried to raise the level of the material are clear enough (complex characters and relationships, a wry tone, a somewhat interesting setting), but the flaws are equally evident: motivational problems; a plot that is a little too obvious; and when the suspense elements inevitably take over from the other, more interesting aspects of the movie, there are insufficient thrills and excitement, and the whole thing kind of peters out and ends up seeming a little half-baked.

In many ways a fascinating intersection of "high-art" and mainstream film-making gets a lot of mileage from the uneasy tension between Altman's signature avant-garde camera angles and performances he teases from his actors (Branagh has never delivered a more transformative performance) and Grisham's unashamed pot-boiler of a screenplay; you keep thinking Altman is going to somehow redeem the film but Grisham ultimately overwhelms him, especially towards the finale. Still fun to watch.

Nice enough performance from Branagh but the plot is all over the place. The characters are extremely shallow, making them difficult to care about. The plot is over-obvious. Not very good.

okay movie

Why people hate it so much? Altman gets a genre (thriller), and builds a film in a pleasant way. Ok, it's not such a masterpiece like The Long Goodbye, but it's not a stinker too...

#17#, exp3, rw2, story, director Altman/2, (cast)

A solid but somewhat slow rental.

Courtroom thriller with incredibly stoopid hobos-gonna-get-ya! story. Brannagh's Bill Clinton and Davidtz post-modern femme fatal(?) somehow made it a decent-enough.

Good

After disastrous test screenings noting this film's lack of tension and terrible score, a small rumble broke out over control of the final cut. Eventually, after worse test screenings, the original director's cut prevailed. Unfortunately, the test audiences were probably right both times. Feels awfully stilted, a good cast laden with poor material. Everyone involved has done better, it's a shame.

More like a generic TV show than a Robert Altman movie. Altman's skill was not plot, or thrills, for that matter.

Well, the opening shot is pretty amazing.

Really you need a Jack Nicholson doing the pyscho stalker of the family.

I'm very tired of these sorts of wackos on the loose thrillers and this one offers no new twists on the genre.