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DVD Breathless
 Run time: 92 min Rating: 4.9 Genres: Comedy | Thriller Director: Jesse Baget Writers: Jesse Baget, Stefania Moscato Stars: Val Kilmer, Ray Liotta, Gina Gershon |
| Storyline After killing her bank-robber husband, a Texas housewife must dispose of the body and find the loot while avoiding the local sheriff. |
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| Plot Keywords: one word title | |
| Details: Country: USA Release Date: 14 August 2012 (USA) |
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| Box Office Budget: $5,000,000 (estimated) |
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"We are in Texas there are no accidents. There's alive and there's dead." Lorna (Gershon) is very upset with her husband Dale (Kilmer) after years of prison for robbing convenience stores he is free. She finds out that he has robbed a bank and she is upset because he isn't sharing with her. She calls her friend "Tiny" (Giddish) over to help her though her problem but things go from bad to worse. I have to say that for the most part this was a pretty entertaining movie and it made me laugh a few times but it is not anything really good. The humor is the "redneck" type of humor like the kind in "Raising Arizona" but it's not quite as funny. I've said for a while now that Val Kilmer has really gone downhill for some reason. While this is his best (and by that I mean only watchable) movie in a while his acting is terrible. Ray Liotta has been going down that road too but his acting is actually decent in this movie. This is nothing amazing but it is pretty funny in a very dark & I shouldn't be laughing at this kind of way. Overall, not a bad way to spend an hour and a half. I give it a B-.
I can't believe there's only ONE review for this movie! I just saw it and have so much fun from beginning to end that it's almost impossible to describe!
Within its genre this movie is a masterpiece, this movie is…PERFECT! Black humor from the word GO, relentless, suspenseful, hilarious… it has EVERYTHING!!! On top of that its script is so clever, SO CLEVER that you don't have an idea.
Everything came out as round and smooth as that crystal skull they found in Perú (or some place like that) and it's –they say– several thousand years old, but with a surface so smooth that only could have been polished with a laser beam. This is exactly the impression I got from this film, sheer perfection!!!
Convoluted script, because it consists of several layers, layers the director peels away, one by one, like a superb magician and you look like a dumb child, the trick being performed in front of your naked eyes but you don't see the obvious tricks until towards the end when the whole puzzle starts getting its pieces in the right places and you close your open mouth saying: "Well… I'll be darn… so that was the way it happened"…
I tell you, incredible.
As incredible as the acting, because the idea is quite difficult to put through and make it believable –truly believable– otherwise, with mediocre actors, this film would have crumbled from the very beginning, and these crew was superb (maybe with a small reservation for Val Kilmer, over the top in his overacting bit, fortunately in a cameo part) but the two women were fantastic.
Yet you get to know the characters little by little, small gestures, ticks, reactions to one another according to the dialog, situations, doubts, a myriad things, and yet, you are fooled from beginning to end, one step unfolding its real meaning until the next step unfolds a new, unexpected surprise, till the very last frame!!!
One of the best movies I've ever seen, and I hate movies with this kind of characters that speak with those accents and live in those places and listen to that kind of music!!!
Granted, it isn't "Pantaleón y las visitadoras" (2000), "Barry Lyndon" (1975), "Death in Venice" (1971), "L'ínnocente" (1976), "Tous les matins du monde" (1991), "Blade Runner" (1982), "Le scaphandre et le papillon" (2007), "Los otros" (2001), "Tom Jones" (1963) — I just mentioned a few of the many movies I admire and will stay with me forever more, but again, considering the characters, their place under the sun, their music and their speaking accents… this movie is TOP DRAWER. (And I myself have the nerve to talk about accents in English…!!!).
I don't think my comments spoil the movie but be warned. Two women out in the Texan desert in a trailer, a dead body with a hole in the head on the floor, and a policeman (Ray Liotta) sitting outside in his car waiting for someone to bring him a warrant to search the trailer. What can the women do to dispose of the body? That's what they asked themselves and their solution is pretty grim. If you cannot watch CSI or Dexter, then this might not be the movie for you. Lorna and Tiny (Gina Gershon and Kelli Gidish) didn't mean to kill Dale (Val Kilmer) who sat trussed up in his chair, looking like a bullfrog, while Lorna, his wife, interrogated him as to the whereabouts of the US$100,000 that he stole from the bank but Lorna'd had a few drinks and the gun kinda went off as she was waving it around. Then the policeman turns up, asking the whereabouts of Dale and he wasn't about to go away. But kitchen appliances can come in very handy in a crisis, when you want a body to go away.
While the plot of this story is grim, and the humour most definitely dark, the dialogue is fast and clever and held my interest throughout. All the characters were colourfully portrayed in Texan style and then some, and I found myself far more entertained than I thought I would be, more than I morally should be, which is kinda worryin', ain't it? More reviews from me at: Movies-and-Books-World
The main problem with Jesse Baget's 'Breathless' is that it takes itself too seriously thinking that it's slicker, cleverer and funnier than it actually is. The weak script is perforated with holes. The dialogues try to be clever and funny but they hardly impress. A movie like this really needs to sustain its tension and element of suspense but every breath that 'Breathless' takes is predictable. Moreover, the pacing drags especially the dialogue ridden scenes that after a point sounds like mumbo jumbo. Of the performances, Gina Gershon does a fine job. Kelli Giddish performs adequately. Val Kilmer is funny in a brief role. Ray Liotta is far from his best. Production value looks quite good. All in all, 'Breathless' is lacks the life to sustain the viewer's attention. For a dark comedy, its just not that funny.